JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Ripples in the Pond
by VeralicProductions
Summary: An Alternate Universe, a retelling of the classic battle of good and evil! In the modern Era, Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando have grown in diverging paths. The familiar power of the ripple and the Stands will unite them as the world is threatened! AU
1. The Legend Unfolds

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me. Any non-continuous information regarding character abilities and other concepts should be reported to me as they come up by the readers for correction. Thank you, enjoy!

* * *

In the modern age, the Joestar International Trading Enterprise has risen above all expectations and monopolizes the global trading market! The head of this marvelous estate is George Joestar who rules the business that his family built out of nothing so long ago with his young son, Jonathan, at his side. Never has such a wonderful humanitarian, such a man of the people, existed! The Joestar name is synonymous with success and wealth, but still tragedy has struck the family name.

As of his infancy, young Jonathan has been without a proper mother and George without a wife. However, in the name of his family and his business, he refused to remarry, despite the efforts of all the eligible suitors that presented themselves. Mergers and consensual corporate plans were presented as dowry, but still the corporate giant didn't budge. The devotion he had for his late wife was too great for him to overcome. Eventually, that devotion was to be his downfall. In the fall, during his wife's twelfth anniversary of death, George became deathly ill. The symptoms all pointed toward heart failure, and his doctors were utterly baffled.

"Hang in there" the man at George's bedside said. "You can pull through this, Mr. Joestar! We all believe in you!"

"Donald..." George softly muttered, "how is your son?"

"You mean young Ron?" Donald replied. "He is doing well, although the atmosphere of the city is making him a bit hostile at times."

"That is good" George weakly said. "He is the heir to the Speedwagon enterprise, after all."

"Don't talk about heirs so much, George" Donald said, beginning to sob. "Young Jonathan cannot run your company like you do. What will you do about him."

"That is up to him" George said. "If he wants to inherit the company, he can when he is of age. If he declines it, my business partners can you will be able to find a suitable replacement. It is...his choice now, and I trust him..."

"Don't talk like you're going to die right now, old friend" Donal pleaded. "You mustn't worry yourself anymore. I will look after Jonathan for now, but he'll come to you once you're better."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, my friend" George said. "Now, I think I'd like to...rest..."

"Yes" Donald said, getting up to leave. "I'll let you rest...so you can get better..."

So Mr. Speedwagon left his friend on his hospital bed. The heir to the massive Speedwagon Foundation for the Advancement of Pharmaceutical Science, Robert Edward O Speedwagon, had no knowledge of his best friend's father's near demise, and Donald intended to keep it that way. The less worry there was in the world, the better it seemed. Meanwhile, said heirs Jonathan and Robert, were taking time away from the world to socialize at a benefit concert held by an employee under Robert's father.

"Nice concert, eh?" Robert asked his friend. Although they were high as royalty in the modern world, both boys dressed casually, wearing shirts that had the names of the performing bands on the front and back with regular jeans.

"It's great" Jonathan replied. He was a strikingly gentlemanly as his father and his father before him. A perfect image of what a young billionaire-to-be should be. His soft, waving hair blew in the breezing wind and his foot tapped to the alternative rock that blared out from the center stage. "This is a wonderful thing Mr. Miller is doing. We should thank him if we see him."

"Maybe he can get us backstage, eh?" Robert nudged. "How cool would that be? We'd be the luckiest damn kids at school!"

"Well, that would be neat" Johnathan said. A bored and utterly painful sigh came from behind. Johnathan turned to see who made it, but no one behind him looked unpleasant enough to give off such a sigh.

"I'm gonna go get a drink, 'kay?" Robert said. Without waiting for Johnathan to respond, he hopped away and moved through the crowd toward the refreshment stands. Johnathan watched the concert for a while longer, but then another bored sigh came from behind. The music quieted down as the voice of the person grew louder and more real. Johnathan looked behind him at last and was startled by the sudden sight. A mask of stone worn over a young man's face!

"How...boring..." the young man behind the mask said. He brushed a hand over his golden hair and started to remove his mask, revealing a face so handsome that the winds stopped out of respect and admiration. Johnathan felt like he was staring down some unknown entity...a demon, in that very instant, but the feeling lifted quickly as the boy spoke up again. "This world...it's so boring..."

* * *

To elaborate on this fated meeting, time must be turned backwards a bit! In a rural town at the edge of nowhere, far away from the lights of any city and any reality, lived a family. This family was one of great misfortune and despair, the Brando family. Father Dario abused and worked his wife, Elina, to death as he drank and beat his son, Dio. In this house, less than a month ago, Dio observed the passing moments of his father as his drank the last of his whiskey.

"Gyahahah!" Dario drunkenly laughed. "Boy, where do you think you're going!?"

"Anywhere" Dio sternly said. He picked up a case of essentials, some clothes, and other personal effects that he prepared in advance.

"Like you'll survive!" Dario guffawed. Dio scowled deep in the shadows, but did not face his moronic father out of pity. His ogre of a parent would surely storm across the room and try to beat him if he gave the wrong tone. Although Dio now carried a knife, he didn't want to spill the unnecessary blood of his useless father. "Look at me! When I left home, all I had was a smart-ass mouth and a bottle of shitty booze. You're no better! You're only younger than me when I left."

"I can't stay in this house anymore" Dio explained calmly. "This is the house where my mother, a great woman, died slaving for you, a living pile of shit. I don't wish to be in my mother's tomb for any longer."

"Wait now, boy" Dario said, his drunken character showing a sign of remorse. "I've apologized for that, you know I have, but listen to me a second. I'm still terribly ill. I can't get out of bed anymore. If you leave, who will take care of me?"

"Like I care" Dio carelessly said. "I never intended to take you life into my hands."

"Then where will you go!?" Dario now drunkenly shouted. "You don't have a family besides me! You don't even have any friends or acquaintances!"

"I don't need friends" Dio said, mainly to himself. "I'll go wherever I please from now on."

"You're twelve!" Dario pointed out. "You'll be the pick of the orchard for all the rapists and child abductors out there! You wanna get yourself carried off and stuffed in a trunk, who the hell cares then!? Do whatever you want!"

"I intend to" Dio said, walking out very righteously with just a soft closing of the door behind him. Dio stopped on his porch, gathered enough stern hostility in his mouth and spat on the door he left from. Effectively, this was the first desecration of his father's grave, as Dario would breath his last drunken heaving breath that night. Dio wandered for two weeks before coming upon the city wherein the Joestar name had become famous.

"Why not settle here?" Dio asked himself when he arrived. "This place has a strong resonance of success and defilement, much like myself. I like it already." So Dio, a young lad, chose the alley behind the local Mega-plex mall as his quarters. He stole from whomever he pleased and was never caught. He made many enemies and some devious allies in the manic homeless men and women who adopted him as a 'God sent Savior of the Slums'. He was revered among the poor and unfortunate the same way young Johnathan Joestar is looked up to by the world itself.

Neither boy knew it yet, but destiny had brought them together in that concert. The mystery behind the stone mask Dio wore is yet to be explained, but the curious young Johnathan had another more vexing question on his mind.

"How" the young gentle man started, "is this boring to you?"

"It just is" Dio said. "Once you've experienced how painful the real world is, fun and enjoyment become primal things and attach themselves to things that truly aren't fun."

"Like what?" JoJo asked.

"Like death" Dio said, "and fighting. Primal urges to kill or be killed become fun because that's the only rush one can get when one's life is in constant threat and dismal disrepair. Living on the streets had taught me that there is no real pleasure left in the world...none at all."

"Hey kid" some random concert goer said, "you need to lighten up. Come on, there's plenty to like about the world. It's a great place!" Dio glared over at the eavesdropper and waited for his mouth to open again. When it did, the tall young man lurched forward and grabbed the man's tongue with his almost clawed fingers.

"It's rude to listen in on other people's conversations" Dio said. The man shivered from the cold glare Dio was giving him and tried to mutter his way into an apology, but Dio would have none of it. "Perhaps rendering you deaf would eliminate this problem, yes?" The young gentleman that Johnathan was, he couldn't stand by and let an innocent man get tortured by some gutter rat like Dio. With a swift kick, Johnathan threw Dio off his balance. Then, with the snap of his fist into Dio's wrist, he made limp Dio's fingers and left him to waver as the blood flow to his hand slowed to a crawl.

_What the hell was that!?_ Dio thought. Johnathan stared down the charismatic young man, who glared right back at him with an even more intense, killing gaze. What transpired between the two shaped their lives far into the future!

* * *

The heir to the Joestar empire, Johnathan, is now seventeen years old and is about to rejoice his early graduation from high school! A valedictorian and the class president, everyone in the business attended the ceremony. Now, as JoJo accepted his diploma, he moved to the podium with resonating grace to deliver his speech.

"Thank you, everyone" Johnathan began. "As you know, five years ago, my father died of heart disease. Many doctors were baffled by the causes and symptoms he contracted, but I know rightly that it was of a broken heart that he really died. In his memory and the memory of my unknown mother, I took it upon myself to exile myself from the Joestar fortune and business until I could complete the same courses my father took to handle such a corporation! This graduation is only the first for me. I shall continue my life devoting myself to my father's life so that I may continue the Joestar name with pride, not as an heir, but as an accomplished scholar!"

Thunderous applause. The vow he had taken many years ago was a pact to take the hard road and learn the appreciation for the world that his father had gathered so well. JoJo would graduate from the highest institute of business learning so he could rightly move into the company he owned and run it with no guilt. Until then, the major benefactors and share-holders of Joestar International would continue to hold the reins while young JoJo lived out his life. Now away from the stage and driving home, JoJo's joy was shining brightly through his neatly carved face.

"Nice speech, JoJo!" said Speedwagon, his childhood friend. Opting to take the same honorable path as his friend did, and to increase his own popularity with those he knew, REO also chose a hermitage of learning and was already accepted into an advanced bio-chemical research college despite not fully completing his high school like JoJo did.

"Thank you, Speedwagon" JoJo said. "I'm sure your father is proud of you as well."

"Yeah he is" Speedwagon replied. "What about your, eh, guardian guy. He must be pretty happy to get rid of you, eh?"

"Well..." JoJo said, trailing off into thought. "He actually said he'd move in with me when I go to college."

"What!?" Speedwagon exclaimed. "That's ridiculous. If I were you, I'd get of that freaky Martian before he cut me up for experiments!"

"He's not like that" JoJo defended, "he's just a bit eccentric."

"Speaking of eccentric" Speedwagon nudged, pointing to some girls on a corner. It was night, and here these ladies stood in flaunty skirts and flamboyant shirts. Johnathan, the gentleman he was, had no intention of stopping for prostitutes, but his friend did so he pulled up next to them.

"Hey there, handsome" the first girl said to Speedwagon. He grinned nicely and tried to show off his face as his best feature. The other girl saw JoJo and immediately went into a rushed panic.

"Hey!" she shouted across the car. "Are you Johnathan Joestar!?"

_Damn you, JoJo!_ Speedwagon mentally roared. _Even when you don't try, you get all the girls!_

"I am" JoJo replied. The girl hurried through her handbag for a plain envelope addressed in scrawled, point letters to 'JoJo the Valiant'.

"This is for you" she said. "It's from the 'Lord of the Underworld', okay?" JoJo understood her code well enough and nodded, stuffing the letter in his pocket. He then sped off, ignoring the traffic light, and went home as fast as possible.

"Hey, slow the hell down, JoJo!" Speedwagon pleaded. "It's not like we're being chased!"

"Speedwagon" JoJo said, pulling in front of a modest little house, "you know who the 'Lord of the underworld' is, right?"

"Yeah sure I do" Speedwagon said. "That doesn't mean you gotta kill me!"

"Right" JoJo admitted. "I'm sorry. Anyway, I'll give you your car back now. Thanks for letting me use it."

"No problem" Speedwagon said. They exited, exchanged keys, and JoJo left for the house, cramped between the walls of two other houses in the compressed city block. REO watched his friend go with a sullen and serious look on his face, then drove off. JoJo stood in front of his porch for a while before pulling out the letter and looking at the back. The letters spelled out the true name of the 'Lord' that sought JoJo's audience for this letter.

"Dio..." JoJo growled. He entered the house and slammed the door behind him. So the tale starts with a jump and skip, forming devious ripples on the lake of destiny. This is the alternate life of Johnathan Joestar and his nemesis Dio Brando!


	2. Breathing Problems

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo walked into his house with the letter hidden in his jacket. Having word from his nemesis, Dio, wasn't all to pleasing to him in any way. He walked to the left, in to the large living room, and stopped curiously.

"Mr. Zeppeli?" he softly called. "Are you home?" Zeppeli, Jojo's current guardian and caretaker, was an old family friend who dabbled in archeology. He was a renowned speaker on such cryptological myths as alien life and prominence of certain trends in world mythology. His appointment as Jojo's guardian was specially chosen by George himself for unknown reasons, for at the time Zeppeli was not yet out of his masters college. And now he was about to greet Jojo as he stuck to the ceiling just above him like a spider.

"Mr. Zeppeli" Jojo kept calling, unaware of the presence above him. "I may need your help filling out my registration. If you're here, please come find me in my room later."

"Very well!" Zeppeli shouted as he fell. "I'll help you now, Jojo!" Jojo waited until he felt the air on his shoulder shift, then he grabbed Zeppeli by the wrist and threw him across the room with a barreling twist. Zeppeli slowed down before hitting the wall and landed on his feet. He was an eccentric looking man, wearing checker-board pattern suit and tie with an unkempt, curly mustache. "Very good, Jojo."

"You've become predictable, old man" Jojo mocked. "I could tell where you were because of your breath!"

"Oh?" Zeppeli said. "So you've finally distinguished my breath apart from your own."

"Of course I have" Jojo said. "Now that I've done that, you'll teach me how to breath correctly, right? A promise is a promise!" Zeppeli stared him down and gave the matter a moment of thought. He could recall promising a young Jonathan that when he understood how his odd breathing technique worked, he would teach it to him. However, Zeppeli probed his conscience and said

"No, not today. I'm tired."

"No way!" Jojo argued. "You promised me. I remember!"

"Regardless" Zeppeli said with a yawn. "What's that in your jacket? It seems to be causing you a lot of stress." Jojo looked down and retrieved the letter from Dio. Zeppeli didn't know who Dio was yet and, if Jonathan had anything to say, he never would.

"It's just a message from a friend" Jojo said. Even his honest and humble tone swayed Zeppeli, who shrugged and walked away.

"Don't stay up too late, okay?" Zeppeli said. "I'll be in my study."

"Doing what?" Jojo asked.

"Studying" Zeppeli replied. "Archaeology is a progressive field. If you lag a little you get replaced." Jojo waved him away and went up to bed to read Dio's communique. Behind the door of his study, Zeppeli was in dread. "I never expected him to progress this quickly. This is bad..."

Upstairs, Jojo laid down on his bed, exhausted, and opened the letter. He assumed that whatever it was it wasn't good.

_Dear Jojo_ it read. _How are you? I and my minions are fine. I have recently learned through my network that you are going to college upstate. Good for you. I, also, will be moving to that area to expand my empire. I'm not writing you to tell you my intentions, as I'm sure you are aware of them, but to warn you. I visited a fortune teller recently and he told me that death would follow after me in my quest for the world. I have come to learn that in the coming of his other predictions, a woman has appeared to take the form of death. I have heard that she uses the alias 'MUSE' when prowling and is a notorious mercenary. Beware her, Jojo, for she may kill you, which is a task only I am accomplished enough to do. Farewell and take care, Dio Brando._

"What?" Jojo said. "Dio's afraid of a woman? That's...strange. He never jokes around though, so I should keep my eye out just in case. Still, why else would he bother to contact me?"

* * *

Deep in the heart of the city's putrid under-realm sat the lord of the darkness. To his sides were his most trusted knights, vandals and criminals promised a life of untold riches for their allegiance. At the steps of his throne was his elite, a visage of horror and power that was covered by the darkness. To his immediate right was a woman holding a goblet of fine wine stolen not thirty minutes ago. And of course, at the center of this dark aura was Dio, slouched in his throne with boredom. His azure eyes pierced the stagnant air and his hair even glowed off the palest light.

"Jojo is in for a rude awakening, master" the girl at his side said.

"Perhaps" Dio lacklusterly responded. "Not much can take Jojo by surprise. The one time I saw his jaw drop was when we were kids and I snuck him into a porno theater...No, he already has a plan to keep the peace with us."

"What about that Speedwagon kid?" she said.

"He's just a runt" Dio shrugged off, taking the goblet and drinking it deeply. "We'll let him deal with our runts if he wants to fight. It won't matter."

"I believe we may be facing a crisis sooner than you predicted, Lord Dio" she said.

"How so, Rosalisa?" Dio asked.

"Let us take the more cautious route" Rosalisa explained "and leave the city soon. We shouldn't have to cut any losses in an unnecessary skirmish with this 'MUSE'."

"Agreed" Dio reluctantly said. "We'll follow Jojo once he leaves. Until then, continue to search for more soldiers and set up a small legion to get Jojo moving. The sooner he leaves, the sooner we can follow him."

"Yes, Lord Dio" she said and left into the shadows. She traveled through the intricate network of holes in walls and scrap-wood bridges into the heart of Dio's underground society, the 'Monster Pit' club back room. The trash metal was just beginning as Rosalita made her way into the crowd. With a strange, arcane movement, she glided through the moshpit and stole away several young men and women, taking them outside and using further, unseen methods to send them into a homicidal panic against Jonathan Joestar. They now began hunting him down, an easy task considering he was only a block and a half away.

Unknowing of his coming hunters, Jojo stepped outside for a moment to catch his breath.

"I don't know why" he said, "but I keep losing my breath in the house. I wasn't even moving, but I couldn't breath at all! Like a weight was crushing my diaphragm...maybe I'm spending too much time around Mr. Zeppeli."

"HEY YOU!" one of the sprinting, murderous fanatics shouted. Jojo glanced over and saw at least five people, dressed in devilish black and studded garb with brandished knives and chains. They stopped only a few sidewalk steps from the still breathless Jojo. "You're Jonathan Joestar, aren't you!?"

"Yeah, I am" Jojo replied.

"Then get ready to fucking die!" one of the roared.

_Not again_ Jojo complained. _I don't know where Dio gets all these guys, but I really don't want to deal with them right now!_

"Get him!" another one of them shouted. They all charged forward, uncaring as to who was watching, and made a leap of faith at Jojo. He stepped back gracefully, drew in a steady breath, and used his log-sized leg to kick the closest one in the teeth. Now that one had no teeth at all and the others were stopped in their tracks.

"**ORA!"** Jojo roared, locking his leg back in ready position.

"It's useless!" one of them quivered. "We won't back down at all! Lord Dio is an absolute power!" Jojo jumped forth, using only his shin muscle on his one leg, and smashed that one in the side of the neck. While he was in the air, he swung his arm down to go into a spin toward the ground. All this happened while he drew in another shaky breath.

"Kill him!" one shouted, drawing up their knife. Jojo hit the ground spinning, and continued to spin by kicking his legs and balancing on his back. He spun around break dancing like that long enough to kick all of them to the ground. Then, he stopped and got back up, keeping one fist tightly balled up and panting.

_This is ridiculous!_ He shouted internally, unable to draw the power to speak. _Why is it so damn hard to breath all of a sudden!?_ "Guh!" he grunted. Out of his mouth, the faintest sliver of blood trickled dangerously. His breath was back, however.

* * *

"According to my research" Zeppeli narrated into a recorder, "the ripple that Jojo and I are able to naturally produce is literally one in a hundred thousand. Similarly, the statistics done at the Speedwagon Para-Scientific institute can solidify my previous claims. The natural ripple of life can be generated through proper breathing technique alone. The myths I have observed from the Mayan ruins would indicate another type of ripple that requires no technique but the ability to manifest it." As he narrated he made notes in Italian, perfectly translating and talking as he went.

"I fear" he continued after gathering his thoughts "that Jojo's symptoms of unexplained strained breath and enhanced perception are the fore-signs to the waking of this new, intangible 'Ghost Ripple'. I must now make it my duty to unlock the 'Life Ripple' breathing technique to further my research. Any means to hinder the growing of the 'Ghost Ripple' will be of great us to the world, as this power is something that is of untold destruction."

He clicked off the recorder, sat back in his seat and sighed. A painting that he replicated on the spot at the Mayan ruins hung over his desk. It depicted, shockingly, the phases of this terrible 'Ghost Ripple', ending with three broken, concentric circles. In his career, Zeppeli learned that three circles forming a ripple shape signified the world, and their breaking was an obvious reference. Fearing the worst, Zeppeli turned for the door to his study. The front door opened and closed soon after, and Jojo was collapsed on the floor.

"Please, God" Zeppeli prayed, "don't let me be too late..."


	3. Moral Dilemma

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo awoke the next morning to a surprise, a hospital roof. At first he was startled and jumped up in his bed, then he calmed down and looked around. It was a private Speedwagon hospital, so no chance of Dio's sabotage like there always was in the city. He was next to an operating breathing machine that had a clear wire leading into his nose. It was clear that his condition had worsened over the night, and Zepeli had sent him to recuperate.

"Jojo!" called the worried voice of his friend, REO. "Jojo, you alright?"

"I think so" Jojo replied.

"Ah man" REO said panting, "I though Dio's goons had gotten ya. You sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine" Jojo said. "I just passed out...had difficulty breathing. I think it's asthma."

"It is not Asthma, Jonathan" Zeppeli said. He came from behind the curtain on Jojo's left with a doctor's coat and checkerboard tie on. "I have the true reason behind your sickness."

"Mr. Zeppeli" Speedwagon inquired, "are you allowed to wear that coat?"

"The explanation is not simple" Zeppeli continued, ignoring Speedwagon, "but it is one you must hear."

"Then go on" Jojo said. "I trust you, Mr. Zeppeli. I'm sure you can explain it so I can understand it."

"That's the thing" Zeppeli said. "Even _I_ don't really understand it." Jojo and Speedwagon shared a look of shock as their brows leaped up. "You see, in my expedition to the Mayan ruins so long ago, I found evidence of an ancient power that was discovered. We humans can only understand such power as ESP, psychic powers, but the Mayans knew fathoms more than we could decipher with science today. All humans have laden within them the power of life, the natural energy of all living creatures. Jojo, for most of your life, you've known that I can manipulate that energy, called the 'Ripple'."

"Eh...?" Speedwagon groaned in confusion. Jojo sternly sat and listened.

"The Ripple I use" Zeppeli continued "is based around the ancient art of 'Sendou', or the Hermit Way, that was taught to me by a Tibetan shaman. It involves, as you know, a perfectly rhythmic breathing pattern to work and I can use that energy for a variety of purposes. The main use of the Ripple energy was for healing purposes, but it can also serve as a key to the greater mysteries of the human mind. It can unlock or seal away the ancient ESP powers known as 'Ghost Ripples'."

"These 'Ghost Ripples'" Jojo said, trying to grasp the conversation he was in, "I can assume they're bad things? Unnatural things?"

"Somewhat" Zeppeli answered with a shrug. "They are as normal as any person who admits to having psychic powers may be. I only know what I translated, that these powers can be used in any fashion, depending on the user. However, in the Mayan prophecy, there was an uprising of the evil users who led a campaign that destroyed the world in the end. That is why I consider them evil. Jojo, the symptoms you are exhibiting may in fact be the first signs that your body may unleash a 'Ghost Ripple' very soon. Therefore, for the sake of preventing any potential outbreak, I shall seal it off by activating your Life Ripple!" Zeppeli drew up his right arm, made a fist, and extended his pinky.

"Wait" Speedwagon said, "what're you gonna do?"

"I agree" Jojo said. "How can you expect me to be a potential body of evil? You know me, Mr. Zeppeli!"

"No" Speedwagon interrupted, "I meant, what's he gonna do with his pinky finger...wearing a lab coat?"

"Just calm down, Jojo" Zeppeli cautiously said, raising a hand in peace. "It won't hurt too bad. I'm going to force your body to produce the Life Ripple by reseting your lungs. You'll be fine and your condition will be gone. Just please, don't resist me. I know what I'm doing. Trust me!" Jojo threw off his covers and took out his breather.

"Of course I trust you, Mr. Zeppeli" Jojo said. He started moving toward the window and Speedwagon became uneasy.

"Jojo, don't be foolish!" Zeppeli warned.

"Jojo, seriously" Speedwagon said, calmly approaching him like a scared man trying to tame a wild animal. Jojo just smiled and slowly started opening the sliding window.

"Jojo!" Zeppeli shouted, "what are you hoping to gain by running!?"

"I know where I can find my answers" Jojo said. "I won't just settle for a cure to a sickness I don't have. I'm sorry, but this test is in my hands."

"What will you test?" Zeppeli asked, retreating his arm.

"My worth" Jojo explained, "for either power." Then, with the window open, Jojo jumped out and floated through the air. He was only one story up, however, and he went down towards a low-lying tree branch. With his genius reflexes, he grabbed the branch and flipped safely to the ground, where he sprinted away in his day-old jacket and pants. Zeppeli watched him leave sternly, then smiled and sighed.

"As I expected" Zeppeli said. "He won't take anyone's word about his own life into perspective. He's always so difficult, testing himself in any possible way..."

"Ain't we gonna chase him!?" Speedwagon urgently asked.

"No" Zeppeli said calmly. "He only has the one place to run, anyway..."

* * *

The Mall! More specifically, the mega-plex, three story mall that housed the gangs and throngs of thieves and vandals after school hours. Delinquents as young as twelve and thirteen and as old as forty-odd would lounge about in their favorite shops, operating as a sort of loose Mafia chain. None of the gangs every physically fought each other, and they never defended each other, but they always made sure to snarl and bad-mouth whenever the opportunity presented itself.

_What better place to test my instincts_ Jojo thought _than this cesspool of crime?_ He stood at the center of the four-winged megalithic shopping district at the prolific fountain. The fountain itself sprayed water in chains and arcs that reached up to the second story balcony walkways. He waited around, seeing many of his previous alumni from school passing him by. Mostly girls, fluttering about with thoughts of clothes and last-minute high-school regrets with large groups of friends. To those that noticed him he nodded and waved with a wink.

"There" Jojo told himself. "Would an evil-hearted man just be content to wave at girls passing him by? No, he would leap at them like a monster." Then, a scenario started unraveling. A young ruffian was running at full speed, wearing a ski mask of all things, with a bundle of purses in hand. Jojo took the high road and waited for a chance explanation before jumping into action.

"Someone help!" a lovely woman's voice called. "That man stole our purses!" a whole gang of women, young and old, were running angrily after that thief.

"Stupid bitches!" the masked man called. "Just try and catch me! HA!"

"That was rude" Jojo said, running effortlessly alongside him. "Maybe you should apologize."

"What!? Who!?" the man stuttered. "FUCK NO! Get away from me, freak!"

"I'm telling you" Jojo politely warned, not even drawing a feint breath, "you should give those purses back."

"Screw off!" the thief shouted. He made a tackle at Jojo, who just sidestepped him. Now in an advantage area, Jojo stopped and clotheslined the man with his strong, right arm. The thief nearly flipped over Jojo's log of a limb, and slammed viciously to the floor. His hand went limp and dropped the purses.

_Would an evil man stop a robbery? _Jojo asked himself. _No. He'd take advantage of it and steal the purses himself, or aid the thief by fighting off the women!_ Content with his reasoning, Jojo walked away, letting the women retrieve their purses and maliciously pummel the would-be thief senseless.

"Wow" a girl mused at Jojo as he walked, "what a chivalrous young man."

"How kind of that strong, youngster" an elderly victim said, kicking the thief on the ground. Jojo walked with a proud, optimistic smile on his face. Then, pain. His lungs were sent afire and he fell to his hands an knees gasping. He held at his mouth and started coughing violently, and the people who saw his kindness a moment before all rushed to his side.

"Oh my god" a woman worried, "are you alright?"

"Are you sick, kid?" a man asked. Jojo gave a loud cough that was accompanied by a light splatter sound. He shivered from the offsetting cold in his body and slowly removed his hand. There was a good amount of thick blood in his hand that was dripping onto the ground. Jojo stared past his hand and began concerning himself with the mess he had made accidentally.

_A gentleman_ he weakly figured, _wouldn't leave a mess like this..._ He looked around for whatever he could find as a cleaner and saw a terrified girl with a water bottle. He took his clean hand and reached for it.

"You need water?" the girl said, handing and opening the bottle for him. Jojo nodded and retrieved a cloth from his pocket, one he used irregularly at home that he forgot to remove last night, and took the bottle's mouth to its surface with his bloody hand. He tipped the bottle, making the cloth wet, set the bottle down, and then wiped away the blood on the floor. As his fit passed, he used the cloth to wipe his mouth and hand then created a contagion mask just in case.

"No worries, everyone" Jojo said, acting calm. "Just a little coughing fit. I'm perfectly alright now."

"But you were coughing blood!" a woman was quick to point out. "You can't be that alright if you were coughing up blood!"

"Oh, it's no problem" Jojo insisted, waving his hands peacefully. "I'm a little sick, but it's not contagious, so don't worry about that either. I just have bad asthma."

"That must be terribly bad asthma" a man said. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, thank you" Jojo said. "Thank you for your concern, but I'll be fine. Is that thief alright?" He tried peeking over the crowd, and they spread out so he could move over and inspect the bruised man. His lip was dripping blood, his eyebrow was cut, his other eye was swollen shut, his nose seemed broken; and all that was just his face. Those women really fucked the poor guy up.

"You bastard" the beaten thief slurred, struggling to stand. Jojo didn't take a moment away from being a nice guy and helped the weak guy up by the arm, but he gripped firmly enough to give him a proper warning. "I'm make sure RJ hears about this...what's you name!?"

"I don't give scoundrels my name" Jojo said.

"Of course not" the thief groaned. "Just let me go, dammit!"

"Thank you, son" a security guard said. "We'll take it from here." The guards, after gathering a single outraged testimonial, apprehended the thief for proper punishment and justice.

_I have nothing to worry about_ Jojo told himself. _I know, no matter what power I happen to develop, I won't be swayed into evil dealings because of it... _So Jojo set out from the mall center to the northern wing, the least criminally active part of the mall, for the food court where he could buy some hot dogs to replace the lost blood from his 'asthma' fit.

* * *

Elsewhere in the dirty underbelly of the city, a group of true Mafioso thugs marched in front of their leader. It was the broad daylight of noon. The sun and hot stink of stagnant city air made today a perfect day for a walk down extortion lane.

"Are you comfortable, my lord?" one of the pin-stripe suited men said behind him.

"Yes" the man behind said. It was Dio, wearing a feathered coat and a shirt of broad gold and dark-blue stripes. His pants were custom built, loose at the top but tighter at the bottom and he wore leather boots with steel toes. He resonated with charismatic energy from his golden head to his powerful feet, and everything in between. His men stopped and turned heel-toe to a battered and shabbily patched door. It seemed like a door where they were frequent visitors. They took defensive positions as Dio ascended the stoop steps and knocked on the door.

"You know who it is" Dio called. "Open the door." No response. There wasn't the clatter of rushed hiding, or the cocking of a gun, just silence met his stern maliciousness. So, Dio took the obvious mob-boss alternative to peaceful extortion and kicked in the door. "Knock knock!" he growled. His men automatically spread out and started searching with switchblades armed.

_These people owe me a harem girl..._ Dio told himself. He searched in every closet and closed space. He even punched holes in the wall and kicked apart every cabinet and cupboard he could see.

"My lord" one of his soldiers reported, "they left us a message on their answering machine."

"Play it" Dio snarled. He went into the empty, torn-up living room and sat on the only couch cushion still intact. After a beep, the message began.

_Dio, we are sorry to do this to you, but the threat of 'MUSE' is too great for us ti stay here any longer. Once we can get our daughter to you safely, we will. Believe me, she wants to join you. I'll contact you somehow...I'm sorry._ The message was over. Dio said and stared ahead with a stern, agitated face. He shot up and stormed out the door, across the street, and into the alley.

"This goddamn 'MUSE'" he growled. "She isn't even here and she's already fucking with my empire! I may have to move out faster than I expected."

"My lord" reported a ratty voice. A man hung from the wall like a spider, clinging with only one finger to the creases between the laid bricks in the side of the building they were behind. "I have news about young Joestar."

"Really?" Dio said hopefully.

"He has angered Ronnie James' gang at the mall" the scout said. "Apparently, he was exploring the depths of his morality, stopped a thief from stealing purses, then had an asthmatic fit and the thief was carried off by security."

"Is he still there?" Dio asked.

"It seems he is intent on staying there for a while" reported the spy.

"That will be enough, then" Dio said. "I shall gather up a force and observe Jojo in the mall tonight. Tell Rosalisa to maintain the hive while I'm gone."

"Yes, my lord" the scout said. Then he was off, speeding over and across the walls like an insect for the greater underground. Dio grinned menacingly as he walked through the darkness. The opportunity to see Jojo operate and truly witness his supposed 'sickness' was too good to pass up. So he grinned, all the way to his mysterious villa and out into public with his gang to the mall. As he was en route to see Jojo at a distance, Zeppeli and Speedwagon sped through traffic to ensure Jojo's safety up close as his family. His father and his brother.


	4. Escaping into a Fight

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The coming evening was cold and dry. The mall was readily emptying out, and Jojo went shuffling about the south wings as casually as he could. There were gangs here by the bushel, nearly every store housing a brewing fight between at least three separate gang members. This was, ironically, the place where one would go for modern herbal treatment or massage therapy. This was the peaceful part of the mall, and walking here at any time was a great danger.

_I've done a lot today_ Jojo told himself. _The thief earlier, I stopped a robbery, I saved a man from choking; I think my moral fiber is at its peak! I know I'll be able to control whatever this 'Ghost Ripple' power is. I won't become evil because of it, that's certain..._ Still, the doubt that Zeppeli had lingered in Jojo's heart. It was the final lead weight weighing his decision to humbly return down. He had unknowingly strayed too far into the most prominent gang's territory as a result of his conscience questioning, and now was in danger once more. This was the territory of Ronnie James, the toughest gang leader in the mall.

"Boss" a weasily voice whispered in the dark, "that's him!" From the inside of an abandoned incense store, still stocked with old and unsold incense that was stacked up into a chair in the back, was the elite thugs of Ronnie James, the crime lord of the south wing. The weasily scout who peered out the window went running back into the stock room with his urgent air and hurriedly repeated his message. "Boss, it's him!"

"Him who?" the green lips asked.

"The guy who beat up D.D.!" the scout said. "He's just walking around!"

"Oh, so?" RJ sighed. He was a relaxed and muscular kind of punk-goth freak. He had a large, flat Mohawk stripped black and green. His face was plaster-white and painted with toxic green eyeliner and lipstick. He even wore reptilian contacts to complete is demonic look. His ears were so fully pierced with thick metals and even safety pins that it didn't seem likely for him to hear at all. He wore a fishnet mesh undershirt under a very torn and blood-stained black shirt with a snake-ridden skull on it. His pants used to be cargo pants, until the bottoms were ripped off at some fight and now they were cargo shorts. Despite his pale, hairless legs showing all the time, he still wore stripped socks and army boots.

"We must welcome him" RJ said. "Send out some doormen."

"Yes sir!" the scout reported.

"No need to rally them up" one of the thugs said. "We shall go." Four huge men stood up from the box room and started heading out. The scout moved out with them and unlocked the side entrance for them. Ronnie James picked himself up and went over to the blackened window to watch. Unfortunately, Jojo was not in sight of the closed shop.

"I'll go watch" RJ said. "Keep the shop locked down."

"Yes, sir" the scout said. Meanwhile, Jojo had picked up his pace to get to a bathroom in time.

"Oh, not good" he said. "I haven't taken a leak since last night! Why didn't I do this sooner!?" He broke out from a nervous arch into a light jog, and the thugs behind him were running at full sprint.

"We'll kill that son of a bitch!" one of the growled.

"He'll wish he was never fucking born!" another yelled. Jojo still didn't notice them, and he didn't notice the escalator either, as he started running up the down stairs.

"What's wrong!?" Jojo shouted. "I can't climb these stairs!"

"That's the wrong escalator!" one of the thugs yelled. Jojo stopped for a second and started drifting downward. Then he switched over to the right one with a firm grip on the moving rail and stomped down on the correct steps. Still, he was rushed, and ran the rest of the way to the restroom. The thugs waited outside for him, as fighting a man in a bathroom may result in wholly unhygienic outcomes. Finally, Jojo was done and was washing his hands, but there was a burden of weight on his back.

_Something feels disgustingly wrong..._ Jojo told himself. _There were footsteps after mine, like I was being followed. I have a bad feeling about going back out there._ Jojo leaned in to the door and tried to listen in to see if his intuition was right, lest he assume the worst like a criminal would.

"When's that fucker gonna finish?" one brashly asked outside the door. Two of the thugs guarded the hall so no one could go in or out, and so they could get this man by themselves to toss off the railing of the second floor.

"He must be takin' a shit" the other one said. "Man, I hope he leaves some shit for us to beat out of him when he's done in there..." That cemented it. After a long day of nearly no food and only one bathroom break, Jojo knew he was in no shape to get into a knuckle-dragging fight. Therefore, with his genius-capacity reflexes and observation ability, he made a plan...

"Where the fuck is he!?" one thug rudely shouted. The mall was emptying down to the last late-minute shoppers, which were old ladies and bored, unrestricted young women. "What, did he die in there?" The thug had lost his patience and was about to storm into the room, but the other thug stopped him.

"Don't be an idiot you shit-head!" he said with a firm slap to the scalp. "Don't you get it? This ain't just some idiot, alright?"

"How do you know?" the thug said.

"You never heard of this guy?" the thug said. "He's nuts! He's got some inhuman strength and stamina! He's Jonathan Joestar, the baddest ass in town next to that weirdo, mafia killer fuck! The boss is even scared of this guy! They say he commands a whole legion of private police, or some such shit."

"Really?" the more hasty thug said. "That's serious. Maybe we shouldn't mess with this dude then..." And while those two conspired, Jojo made his stealthy exit from the women's unwatched restroom to the other unguarded end of the hallway. He softly ran along and disappeared while the thugs continued to cluelessly wait and talk of rumors.

* * *

_Thank god those vents were big enough_ Jojo said, although earlier he was cursing his huge frame. Jojo stopped his rush and noticed that he was in an empty mall. All the shops were closed or closing, all the shoppers were leaving, and only a handful of people remained in the whole gigantic place. If ever he had a time to leave and return home, it was now. So he briskly jogged along to the center of the mall. On the second story, the stairs spiraled around the fountain from each extending wing, and Jojo could see the calm water of the fountain now that it was shut down for the night. He could also see, from the pale light given by the moon, the gangs moving in. The leaders and grunts who all managed to stay in the mall indefinitely were gathering calmly at the fountain area, and Jojo stood by to watch.

There were the north end's co-leaders of the Sister Gang, the rich boy leader of the east Platinum Gang, the super-punk leader of the south Zombie Gang, the leader of the other southern wing troop the Red Badge Gang, and the west wing's three major powers, all known as the Trinity Gangs. Jojo had always heard of these people, and he even saw them occasionally in the sunlight. Now they were all gathered together for a mysterious meeting. Jojo wanted to lean in to listen, but the risk of discovery was to great, so he snuck away along the easter balcony.

"Thank you all for coming" said RJ to the congregation. "I believe you all know why I have asked for this assembly..."

"Because you're a pussy!" the red badge leader, who dressed and acted like a retired war veteran, shouted. "You're too afraid to stand up like a damn man and defend yourself! Well I already know what you're gonna suggest, and the Red Badges refuse to team up with you, you make-up wearing freak!" Ever the gentleman and a wordless stranger, Ronnie James smiled and tilted his head in the direction of his opposition.

"Well, that isn't what I wanted to talk about" he said very calmly. "I am here to have a conference with anyone who is willing to accept my offer."

"Are you sure this isn't an offer to join?" said one of the trinity leaders, this one with a stripped bandanna that resembled a pirate.

"Not me" RJ said, "and not any of us here. I want us to consider, only consider...asking the Nights for assistance." His proposal met instant anger, as every gang leader and representative went in for his throat. His own men formed a techno-punk wall and the guarding thugs of the other leaders held their respective bosses back.

"Stop this now!" one of the other Trinity leaders said. This gentle man looked like an old-west style cowboy, complete with trench coat and handle-bar mustache. "The last thing we want to do is start in-fighting now, let alone talk about that mother-fucker and his Nights!" This met approval.

"A mall-wide partnership isn't a bad idea" one of the norther Sister leaders said. Both women wore shiny and provocative clothing and stayed within skin contact constantly. "Granted, only a few of us have anything to contribute to a full-out army against this...threat." Ronnie James was still, but kept his smile and congenial personality.

"Well, fuck all y'all!" the Red Badge leader said. He started walking away with his middle fingers up and spinning around. "You can have your pussy little alliance, but I'm staying out of your stupid fight. I'm a damn man! And no woman's going to push me around. When that bitch rolls around I'mma just look at her, slap her face and say, 'woman, you get in that kitchen and make me some steak!' and I'll be just fine!"

"Have you seen the headlines?" RJ asked the angry soldier. One of the Platinum men walked over with a newspaper in hand. Those gang members dressed in the finest stolen silk business suits they had, and looked like an honest mafia compared to the colorful characters around them. The grunt held out the newspaper and the Red Badge swiped it away, reading the lines and straining at the pictures under the dim light.

"Boss!" a gruff voice called from the east. "I found a straggler." In the arms of two rather large men, Jojo walked without a fight and a sullen expression. He was almost home free, he could see the outside, but then these men approached him and he went without a fight, lest he look like the bad guy. They looked like serious men, like security agents, and he didn't want to jump to conclusions.

"Oh my lord..." the soldier said in horror. The story he read was one that sent chills and terrible shivers up and down his spine. The accompanying pictures of the murdered family made the experience of reading that article even more horrible.

"Now you see what we're dealing with" the scrawny Platinum leader said. "This is a very serious threat..." Jojo politely shook off his captors and observed the folding scene with building interest. "...this is the threat of 'MUSE'." That name again. It struck a cord with all the leaders. All the toughest gangs in this mall, in the city, and even Dio Brando were shaken by this name.

"Who...?" Jojo asked. "Who the hell is this 'MUSE'?" The mafioso of the Platinum gang turned to him, as they were the only ones to hear him, with honest looks of worry.

"She is pure hell" the leader said.

* * *

Under the treaty of the brisk moonlight, the gangs departed with no plan formed. The threat they faced and the actions that had to be taken were so resounding to Jojo that he could barely even walk straight. After he explained his situation to the Platinum leader and his subordinates, they agreed that he meant them no harm and let him leave unharmed. It seemed that the threats associated with the Joestar name were very real to these low-level criminals. So Jojo was to walk home, unescorted, through the mean streets of downtown to the nearest running bus-stop. Granted it was barely after ten o'clock, so he felt no need to rush.

"Mr. Joestar" called the voice of Ronnie James. Jojo turned around with a tired scowl and faced down the leader with his whole legion of strong-handed troops. "I don't believe we've met. You know who I am, correct?"

"I-" Jojo began

"You battered one of my men" RJ explained sternly. "It would only seem fit as a gentleman if you return such a beating to us..."

"...I did what was right." Jojo defended. "Far be it from me to tell you how you can live your lives, but not at the expense of others! If I see a crime I stop it. That's the kind of gentleman I am!"

"Then you should hope" RJ began, "that some stronger gentleman comes upon you while a crime is committed on your person." The grunts giggled nefariously, and Jojo posed to take them on. "Kill hi-" but his order was cut off. Something evil pierced through the cool, night air. The clouds sped up out of fear, the ground went icy cold, all the stray cats and dogs stopped their howling and fled at the sound of the demon lord's

**WRRRYYYYYYYYY!!!!**

"JOJO!" shouted the evilest voice from the darkness, "how are you doing tonight? Tell me, what did you discover about yourself today???" Down from the streetlights, onto the hood of a car, and across the street the golden-jacketed villain flipped. He wore his regal pants, stitched with loving servitude out of only the most durable silk and canvas with pure, shining black color. He rested his curled leather shoes right in step next to Jojo, and posed with one powerful arm above his head and the other with unevenly curled fingers out like an inverted bow was being held.

"Did you learn that you are weak in the face of evil?" he asked. Jojo kept silent for a moment, then smiled and stared with heroic glints in his eyes.

"If anything, Dio" Jojo began, "I am always stronger in the face of evil!" Jojo and Dio stood, back nearly to back, against the swarming legion of Ronnie James, who was taken aback with fright. His careful lipstick smudged as he bit his lip in terror.

"Let evil help you for now" Dio offered. "I've been meaning to break a sweat as of late."

"I can't stop you from helping me" Jojo said, "so go right ahead." These two rivals, now fighting together! What other strange twists will be unveiled in this odd new story of two young men as contrasting as the sun and the moon!?


	5. Jojo & Dio vs RJ's gang

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

James' force was at least twenty strong. Men of varied build holding varying weapons with further varying looks of fright and carnal delight. Standing them down just a stone's throw away was the most unlikely team. Jojo on their left and Dio on their right, back to back and poised to fight!

"What will you do, Jojo?" Dio lowed.

"The guy on five to the left on the far right" Jojo began. "He bothers me the most." Among the crowd, Dio was able to pick that one man out. He had scars between his facial piercings and gave off the aura of a truly dangerous man.

"He's killed before" Dio said. "He defected from my gang, the Frozen Nights. I'd rather thrash him, if you don't mind."

"You'll kill him" Jojo said. "I'm not tolerating death here."

"Then have fun dying" Dio said. "If you don't fight these guys like you want to kill them, they won't respect you. More importantly, you won't win."

"Then let me fight the leader" Jojo said. "I know you'll want to kill him."

"Fine then" Dio agreed. "Just don't whine to me when the corpses start dropping!" At his snarl, he charged forward, an unstoppable force of violence. Jojo followed after as Dio carved a path through the troops for Jojo to rush through. His aim was taking down the leader, leaving Dio to destroy the others.

"ARGH!" one random knife-wielder roared, "I'll kill you!" He jumped out from the group at Jojo, knowing he was in Dio's blind spot. However, Dio still managed to throw back his leg and break some of his teeth on the swinging mule kick. He kept on running and punching miscreants out of the way, using his cooling charisma and charm to lull the thugs into peace before outright smashing their noses to dust. Jojo kept his pace until the line was broken and he was free to rush Ronnie James.

"How predictable" RJ said. He was more than ready for the ambitious Jojo with a whipping chain wrapped around his arm. He swung the looses metal rope in the air like a mace and crashed it down to the asphalt ground, shaking the loose gravel from the parking lot. Jojo stopped and let Dio circle to his back, staring down and scaring away the encroaching enemies.

"Have fun with him" Dio said. Jojo stood sternly with his fists clenched. RJ took a metal skull from his belt buckle and attached it to the end of his chain, creating a deadlier mace end to the weapon.

"What's wrong?" RJ asked politely to Jojo. "You believe in moral justice, don't you? Can't you believe in my justice?" He cracked the chain in his hands and glared down at Jojo. "Then believe in this justice: you pummeled one of my men into hospitalization, and then you embarrassed my most trusted men by escaping them earlier. Therefore, as retribution, you shall be pummeled and embarrassed by me!"

"I cannot quarrel with you about justice" Jojo said, "because you have defied and avoided it for too long to preach it! If you wish to preach justice, you must experience it!" Jojo thrust out an open palm with a steady breath out, then slowly drew that palm back and pushed a righteous fist forward, breathing in. The ripple effect from his breathing echoed through his body, making his muscles relaxed but strong, his sight rigidly fixed, and his senses sharp. He could smell the fear on the thugs that faced down Dio, and he could feel the icy cold murder in RJ's eyes as he swung his chain overhead.

"Then show me justice!" Rj shouted. "Show me what your justice is!" Jojo exploded forward, stomped into RJ's range before he could react, and blew his open palm forward into RJ's chest. As he did, his back drew his clenched fist back, and he delivered the far-flying uppercut with it once RJ was off his balance. He was now lifting from the ground, letting his chain follow behind him. "Fool..." RJ groaned. He flicked back his wrist that clenched the chain hard, making it whip wildly back at him. The spiked skull buckle that tipped the chain whipped right into Jojo's meaty back and ripped away from him, forcing him to stumble from the pain and hold at his wound. He could feel the hot sting of blood seeping from his wound.

_Fight to kill_ Jojo said, summarizing Dio advice. _Dio, I can't fight like you. I doubt any person with humane intentions could fight like you, no matter how depraved and evil they are. I just have to trust myself and my values that I will win this fight!_ Jojo quickly took off his torn jacket and bandaged his wound around his left lateral with his shirt. Then he put his jacket back on, his muscles shining threateningly in the moon.

* * *

_Seven of them_ Dio told himself. _Seven of them will rush me at once. Three of them will get in striking distance with their arms up, like idiots, which will leave their torsos open. I can punch the center one in the solar plexus, then trip the one to my left with a quick kick and slam the other with a snap-back kick to the groin or stomach...simpletons._

"Get him!" one thug shouted. Almost too true to Dio's prediction, seven of them rushed in at once, but only three really got close enough with fists and weapons held overhead. Dio took the opportunity and acted out his entire attack. First, he ducked and made a hip-twisting punch to the center man's chest just under the ribs. Then he snapped his leg to the left and gave another elegant bucking horse kick to the groin of the man on the right. Four more ran forward as Dio hopped back a step and he again formed a plan.

"You're gonna die, Dio!" one shouted. He broke forward from his steady line with a knife ready to stab. Dio let him get close, then waited for his stab. He did stab, giving Dio the advantage, as Dio was able to spin to dodge him, grab his arm over shoulder, and flip him forward Judo style. As he came down through the air, Dio crouched down on one knee and let the thug's spine shatter on his firmly planted leg. Then he limply fell to the ground. Three more remained from the first rush.

"Don't just rush!" one of the shouted. "We need to plan this out!" It was too late. Out of the remaining three, two wildly rushed in, one with a chain and one with a hammer. Dio slid back on his left leg, shooting a powerful elbow in reverse to the face of the hammer man. He was out of commission. As Dio stood leaning into the man's face, the other thug came bellowing in with spinning chain whipping at Dio's unguarded body. Dio quickly drew back his planted elbow, wrapped his arm around the unconscious hammer man's neck, and used his as a shield. He took the blow to the ribs, which woke him back up in a gurgle of pain. The chain-wielding man was so distressed about hitting his comrade that he didn't notice Dio using the man's back as a pivoting point to spin on. He delivered a kick to the last berserk man's face and let him smash to the ground, then set his feet to the rational man who wanted to plan first.

"What's wrong!?" Dio growled. "Can't plan against perfection?"

"Arrogant bastard" the man cursed, breaking out a large switchblade knife. "I'll cut you down a measure or two!"

"Go ahead then!" Dio offered, standing with his arms raised up. The bodies around him twitched and groaned with pain, and the angry man glared at his target with his knife carefully in hand. He took deep, slowing breaths to calm his mind, then formulated a plan.

_He's going to fake me out_ Dio told himself. _Whatever trick he's going to do will be a distraction, then he'll attack for real._ The man ran forward with the knife steadily gripped in both hands at hip level. His first stab would be strong, either a hard stab or an upwards slash. Dio anticipated either one by placing on hand forward to catch it in whatever motion it carried, then had his other hand drawn back in a chopping position to chop or stab at the thug's vulnerable spot when it came to light.

"Die!" he shouted, swinging his arm up swiftly. He only used his right arm for the attack, which Dio caught before it reached his chest level. The hand, however, was empty. Dio's eyes went wide and looked down as he saw the blade in a reverse grip in the lowered hand. The thug reached around, making a stabbing motion to Dio's side. Dio had a dreadful look of shock on his face, a sure sign that the attack in motion would work, and the thug became confident of himself.

The main rule of fighting Dio is that confidence is over-rated. He will find a way to crush you no matter what, and now he did. With his demonic, grinning face that cracked windows with fear and broke bones with passing glances, Dio counter-attacked. First, a knee to the impeding wrist, forcing the thug's knife out of his tingling hand. Then with his other leg he abandoned his grounding and slammed his enemy's crotch hard with his knee. The seven that rushed him failed, and he made sure this was the rational thugs' final failure by taking his head firmly in his hands and snapping it to and fro until a sickening crack was heard. Then he tossed it down like a deflated ball and evilly grinned down the rest of them. No one moved out of total terror, and Dio ushered in an equally air-splitting hiss to concrete his fearsome image. He growled:

**Wryyyyy...**Jojo fought with equal genius reflex and inspiring tension, but he only fought to vindicate rather than destroy. Thusly his fists flew with less power, less destructive cause than Dio's but the ripple energy he weakly produced backed those punches up two-fold. Regardless to his power or belief, RJ was in shock over how powerful Jojo really was.

* * *

_Compared to his outer appearance_ RJ thought, _he seems to be completely different in terms of power. It's ridiculous! I can't assess his power anymore._ The time for thinking was over, as Jojo was upon him with his fists tightly wound in front of him. _Now he's a boxer. Perfect._

"You want to do a full-frontal attack?" RJ said, trying to psych Jojo out. "Have fun tearing your hands up!" Jojo just took in a long, deep breath and continued ahead until he was in range. Then he sidestepped to RJ's right, and aimed at the arm that held and spun the chain! RJ noticed his plan, as his chain was rotating away from Jojo now, and if he let go it would fly in his opposite direction. That was the genius of Jonathan Joestar in action, the ability to perceive the smallest detail and use it! "No way!"

"Hoooooo...." Jojo lowed, revving his fists up and breathing deep. He waited for the chain to get just where it needed to go, then gave a solid and unexpected chop to RJ's hand. He let go of the chain and it went flying away behind him. "ORA!" Jojo shouted, punching RJ hard in the chest. He flew away but skidded on his boots and stayed on his feet. His chain was still out of sight but he was aware that he couldn't recover it in time. Jojo was running at him now, with the apparent intent to deliver the final, flying kick!

"No!" RJ demanded. "No, Joestar, you won't get me!" RJ took the opportunity and distance to run away, letting his chain lay wherever it was. Now Jojo was behind him and running in pace with a smile on his face.

"We're in the parking lot" Jojo said. "There are only so many things you can do wrong when fighting out here, and one of those things is ignore your surrounding!" Suddenly, RJ's arm was tugged so hard he could hear the bone and joint scraping together hard. He almost lost his arm, he thought, and fearfully gaze back to see if Jojo had grabbed him. He had not, and was still coming. It was his chain, which was now tightly tensed, which Jojo had timed so perfectly to wrap around a light post when it went flying earlier!

"That was my target all along!" Jojo shouted. "You're main mistake was thinking your belt buckle would help you at all! It only made it easier for the chain to stay in place once I trapped you!" It was true. RJ tugged relentlessly but the buckle from his belt only held the chain tighter and tighter. He was at the end of his rope, or chain as it were, and Jojo was hot on the approach.

"You bastard!" RJ shouted. He prepared to make one last pitiful appeal to Jojo's sense of justice, hoping it would save him some unwanted pain. "How can a righteous man kick his enemy while he's down!?" To that, Jojo actually stopped in his gait and stood in front of the defeated and desperate RJ, looking down at him with a shadowed brow.

"You may be right" Jojo said. "It would be foolish to act unjustly, out of anger, now that you are down. Just remember, there are people like me in this world who will refuse to stand by and let you and your kind get away with anything you want. If you or any of your gang member try to accost me or anyone else, I'll make sure you get a proper punishment..." RJ bowed his head to the ground in thanks but stealthily smirked darkly where Jojo could not see him.

"Thank you so much" RJ said. "I won't take this lightly."

"You shouldn't" Jojo said. He raised one strong arm high up and smashed it down to the back of RJ's head. He was down for the count of at least a week now. "Think about your actions in your coma..." With his pride gleaming and his morale high, Jojo turned to Dio's work. A minimal slaughter of at most ten individuals, Dio stood tall with hands on his hips with a prideful yet evil smirk. "I'm sorry, Dio, but you're next..." Jojo started marching dutifully at Dio, and Dio marched right back. They approached each other, step in powerful step, until Jojo stopped suddenly. It was a fateful and unfortunate fit, a convulsion from his building Ghost ripple that debilitated him and sent him coughing blood on his knees.

"Jojo!" Dio shouted with alarm.

"Worry not, Mr. Brando" a calm and commanding voice said. "He will be fine." It was William Zeppeli, stepping into scene at last in his traditional, transfixing checkerboard garb and stylish top hat. "Now then, Jojo, I do hope you learned a valuable lesson tonight." Jojo mustered the strength within him to look up and see the illusionary figure of his guardian coming closer with an impatient and slowly retreating Dio far away. He tried to speak but only coughed and began to black out. "Just remember...  
Father knows best, boy..."  
...


	6. The Beginning of the End

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Again, Jojo awoke dazed and misplaced. He was now in his own house, in his own room, surrounded by his extended family of friends. He was at first startled that he couldn't move very well, then painfully calm to lie in his bed while Zeppeli leaned over him.

"Are you feeling alright, Jojo?" he asked. Jojo could only groan quietly in response. He had been out all night, and now it was the morning after his fight with Ronnie James and his day at the mall. Speedwagon, two of his other school friends and even the otherwise elusive Dio standing in the dark corner. "I'll take that as a yes. According to my theory, Jojo, you are only a few attacks away from developing a Ghost Ripple, something I know very little about."

"We don't know just what's going on, man" Jojo's friend Billy said, "but we're concerned."

"It was pretty bad-ass of you, though" the other boy, Nelson, said, "beating up all those thugs _and_ RJ." Dio just smirked in the corner and looked away.

"I think we need to listen to Mr. Zeppeli" Speedwagon said. "He knows more about this stuff than anyone else."

"..." Jojo agreed with a smile.

"Very well" Zeppeli said. "If you'll kindly leave the room, I will do the procedure post-haste. Jojo, you will be in momentary pain, but eliminating the threat of the unknown in the future is worth it, yes?" Jojo weakly raised up his arm and gave a positive thumb up. Dio, looking rather miffed, exited the room first and leaned against the hallway wall while Jojo's other friends exited out of the house. As Speedwagon walked past, Dio extended a frightening arm to stop him.

"Tell him" Dio began "that he can find me in the food-court tomorrow. We need to have a talk about...territory."

"Uh..." REO shakily stalled. Dio lowered his arm quickly, then sped out of the house and into his streets. "Yeah okay, sure, whatever" REO replied a minute too late.

Inside the room, Zeppeli prepared to give Jojo the aide he needed by extending his arm upwards, breathing deep and extending his little finger. Jojo closed his eyes, confident in his mentor and friend to do what was needed. Zeppeli slammed his fingered fist down deep and hard into Jojo's diaphragm, forcing every milliliter of air out of his lungs and causing him to black out for a second. When he came to, his breathing gave him a renewed and foreign strength. With each breath, he could feel his strength build and the burn of pain at his back and insides go away. Almost instantly, he was in well enough health to sit up and speak once more.

"Is this..." Jojo began, "the Ripple?"

"This is the life Ripple" Zeppeli responded. "More specifically, this is the energy that resonates for all things under the sky. Jojo, without what would we be unable to live?" Jojo blinked over the sudden quiz but answered quickly nonetheless.

"The sun" Jojo answered correctly.

"This is the energy of the sun" Zeppeli proudly stated. "It gives life to plants, which gives nourishment to the creatures that we humans eat. It is the ultimate form of energy, the stone that ripples the flow of all life, hence the name 'Ripple Energy!'"

"I see" Jojo said with equal budding enthusiasm. Now feeling terrific enough to do so, he jumped ot of bed in his boxers and triumphantly posed in the middle of his teen-year room. "This is the energy of all life! With this, the 'Ghost Ripple', an energy that implies it is against life, will be subdued!"

"That is my theory precisely" Zeppeli noted. "However, it is untested and completely unbiased. Jojo, consider yourself my dry-run of a test subject. You had the symptoms of producing a Ghost Ripple, and now you will begin the training to perfect the technique of the Sun Ripple to keep it at bay."

"I'll do anything I can to fight evil" Jojo proudly said. "That's what a gentleman, maybe, that's what a Hero does!" With his head up high and his chest widely puffed out, Jojo strutted out of his room in his casual afternoon jacket to start the day under his new training regiment that Zeppeli would soon implement.

"Jojo" Speedwagon interjected, surprised to see his friend moving about so energetically. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yup" Jojo replied. "What's up? Why was Dio here?"

"He wants to meet you" Speedwagon reported. "In the food-court tomorrow. I don't know what about, and I don't want to know what about. Just...watch yourself, okay?"

"I will" Jojo sternly said. Speedwagon saw himself out, and Jojo reported to Zeppeli for the first brief on his Ripple training.

"Prepare yourself, Jojo" Zeppeli said. "It took me nearly half my life to master the Ripple, but I will expect you to learn it within the month!"

"I won't disappoint you" Jojo said. "I know your best intentions are going into this training, and I'll give over a hundred percent as well!"

"You better" Zeppeli said. "Now then, lesson 1: Breathing..."

* * *

The next day, at the mall, all the shoppers were back in and enjoying a hassle-free shopping experience at the South wing. With RJ rumored to be in horrible traction at the hospital from having his face smashed in it caused temporary brain damage, the public quickly caught onto the safe new shopping they could have and had a ball. The other gangs were already negotiating and standing off for the unclaimed territory that Jojo had inadvertently given them, while the Red Badge Brigade remained adamant at not giving up their own slice of RJ's abandoned pie. The food-court however, was barren of any gang members whatsoever!

It was here that, only a few minutes ago, the gangster's worst fear aside from MUSE was realized, and that fear was Dio! He sat amidst the unknowing, innocent civilians that sat and ate and conversed, waiting eagerly for his rival Jojo with an empty soda in hand. His striking glare was able to reach out through the crowds and pick out the fleeting gangsters by their rushed movements. He was in the Northern wing, near the center of the entire complex, and on the second floor. Another, smaller food court was on the third floor, and the ground floor of this area was dedicated to holding the various necessary pipings and electric workings that the mall needed to operate. It was the maintenance area, in short.

Finally, as he sipped upon his already exhausted and watery drink, he saw Jojo come in from the escalator and get greeted by a few lovely girls. Dio sat up in his chair and politely waited for Jojo to cross the court and navigate the maze of tables and chairs to get to him. He looked tired, serious, and oddly impatient to Dio, but walked calmly and smoothly like he had no place to go. He was obviously between important tasks regarding the mysterious 'Ripple' Dio knew so little about. Jojo eventually neared Dio, but was sudden;y stopped by a table of men a year younger than he.

"Hey you!" one particularly thin-necked boy shouted, grabbing Jojo by the shoulder. Jojo turned to him with his sparkling eyes, but saw only the arrogant and pushy face of a high-school drop-out and notorious delinquent. "I hear you're that uppity, rich-boy Joestar! Didn't you, uh, give up your fortune or something?" The boys behind him started to snicker, much to Jojo's firm uncaring mood. "So what, you too retarded to know how to spend more than a dime?" The boys then laughed obnoxiously.

"No, he can't play with dimes" another, fatter, more disgusting boy added, "he'll shove them up his nose!" More juvenile laughter. Dio was getting miffed that his meeting was being delayed, and he leaned back in his chair with a horrific glower to show it, pressing his hand against his forehead and brushing through his hair. Jojo grabbed the by by the arm with a firm but nonthreatening grip and turned to him with a neutral face.

"I'm a man of tact" he said "and I will earn that money by my own deeds done. I will earn it the same way any man earns a living, by working for it. That's why I haven't used any of it for myself." The moronic thugs just gave him blank, gaping stares as he walked off, releasing the boy's arm and letting it burn slowly with the energy he used.

"My arm..." the boy said in alarm. "Ah! My Arm! MY ARM! AAAAHHHH!!!!"

"What's wrong!?" his fat friend asked as he and the others jump fomr their seats. The boy just shouted wildly and made a mad rush for the stairs. Jojo had removed himself to the seat across from Dio quickly enough to avoid suspicion from the strange acts of the panicking boy, but Dio wasn't fooled.

"So you've already found an evil use for it..." Dio pointed out. "Nice..."

"What are we hear to discuss, Dio?" Jojo asked, wanting to waste no time at all.

"Very well" Dio said. He sighed, took a second to gather his thoughts appropriately and annoy Joj, then began. "What do you know about 'MUSE?'"

"Nothing" Jojo immediately responded, as if he knew the question was coming. "I want to know as much as you do about her, Dio. Why is she a threat? What can she do?"

"You sure are eager" Dio noted. "More importantly, why do you want to know? 'MUSE' has nothing to do with you."

"Maybe not for now" Jojo said. "However, if she's a threat to people's lives, I will have to act."

"Ever the chivalrous mess of a man" Dio said, smiling. "It's funny how little you've changed in your ideals since you were a child. While I grew up in a world with no ideals or morals, you made a world where your values are laws of justice that all must obey. Yet here we sit, two wildly different young men, brimming with profound skill, strength and wit, enemies to an uncommon front. Jojo, have we ever truly fought? One-on-one?"

"No, we haven't" Jojo said. "The one time we had a chance, the police intervened."

"And of course, that other time" Dio noted, "when my men came in and 'rescued' me."

"Well, you broke your leg" Jojo pointed out.

"I could have taken you with only one leg" Dio said, with no sense of arrogance in his voice at all. Jojo sternly glared at him under a furrowed brow and waited for him to talk again. It was his meeting, and Jojo expected him to guide it properly. "Jojo, 'MUSE' is not someone...something you should involve yourself with. In all honesty, I doubt I can handle her and I have an army of desperately crazy men with knives and...planks of wood."

"You are a manipulative man, Dio" Jojo admitted. "I'm sure you'll be able to sway her if you try."

"If it were up to me, I would" Dio said. "However, I will not risk my life for another useless girl. I aim to leave town as soon as you do, go somewhere she wouldn't go and stay away from this doomed place anyway."

"It's not like you to give up a fight you haven't even started" Jojo said. He was on the brink of slamming his fists down to force his point forward. "Tell me now, what's so terrifying about 'MUSE', and why won't anyone think about standing up to her?" Dio sighed and sat back, crossing his arms.

"It seems your curiosity is as unshakable as your morals are" Dio said. "Very well. Listen up and get comfy. This may take a bit if you can't understand it at once..."


	7. Run, Dio, Run

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Let us fast forward time for a bit and skip to the end of the summer. Jojo and Zeppeli now return to the country from their eccentric training voyage in distant lands disguised as abroad study. Although Jojo did study, it was in no means scholarly. The life Ripple, the energy of the sun that pulsed powerfully through Jojo, has reached its climactic power! He stands tall as a pillar of living righteousness, a beaming young man who is brighter than the sun!

And now such a youth, such a young adult will go to college to earn his rightful place in his father's world. The Joestar Conglomerate Trade empire still rules strong over all matters of wealth and helps to define the shape of the world itself. All goods and services from the company reflect its heir, as all of them have improved the quality of life and living for people rich and poor. The utpoia moments of humanity are found everyday and at ever corner!

With the demand of taking early control of his new life, Jojo offered to drive once he and Zeppeli reached their car and started out on the highway.

"You've come a long way, Jojo" Zeppeli remarked. "We both have. And, in all honesty, your father would be proud of you...I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, Will" Jojo said. "I still have a way to go, but I know I'll get there. As long as the sun's at my back, I will push forward no matter what!"

"At your back?" Zeppeli said. "What about in your back? That Life Ripple breathing has become unconscious for you, hasn't it?"

"I was breathing it in my sleep from the first night, actually" Jojo admitted humbly. "I know it took you quite a while, though."

"You snide little..." Zeppeli chuckled. "In any case, things seem to be turning out for the better. I just hope your college life will meet your own expectations."

"It will" Jojo said. "I'll make the best of it regardless what I encounter."

"Are you sure you have everything back there?" Zeppeli asked, looking at the single duffel bag and the plastic bag of miscellaneous cleaning supplies. "It seems awfully light for a four-year stay."

"All I need is the Ripple" Jojo said. "Everything else is just a convenience."

"Ah, and you're off" Zeppeli said, "quoting your teachers already. What a stand up student. Your professors will hate you." Both men laughed heartily as Jojo drove on through the lavish and luxurious county for the school grounds. The school in question was one of absolute regard, the highest league of learning in the country and one Jojo had gotten into without a single mention of his fortune. He was one of the few and proud scholarship students at the notoriously expensive Presley Institute of Business Education.

"I'll take the car from here" Zeppeli said. Jojo already had his formal suit on, his duffel bag over shoulder and the smaller plastic bag in hand outside the car. "Happy sailing, Jojo!" Zeppeli left as Jojo waved him away. Then Jojo turned and looked at his new and expansive home. The Presley Institute was a college devoted entirely to teaching the finest art of business and business-related jobs. Jojo's father helped to build this college along with Speedwagon's father and another of their partners. Now Jojo began walking to enter his legacy.

The hallways bustled with the formal and informally dressed students, some touring and others mingling. The tour groups were mostly of important business figures and dignitaries who brought along their sons and daughters to hopefully pique their interest in attending a school most families would have to save up for a lifetime to afford for a semester. None of the children, of age and otherwise, looked at all interest ed, which Jojo took with a slight look of pity.

The campus itself was massive, built on the grounds of an old farm and field. The main building was the vision of mixing beauties. An antique exterior of stone and growing ivy vines combined with the interior that assumed a futuristic vision form some kind of novel. The dorms were all suites, all of which could easily house a number of students, and all of which were privately maintained. The commons room had an Olympic indoor pool and huge recreation center. Even rich kids needed to toss basketballs and play some baseball, all of which could be done on any given rainy day. A track miles long snaked around the whole of the campus and the parking lot had recently been renovated to make room for an entire parking garage, complete with roof.

"It seems a bit over the top" Jojo noted.

"The renovations, you mean?" a dignified lady-like voice said. Jojo turned to the voice and saw an upstanding young woman with an honest and submissive light in her eyes. She was a proud woman, standing with shoulders up and hips square. She showed no weakness, no falter in her pose and absolutely no interest in Jojo's godly frame for some reason. "I think they suck too..."

"Oh" Jojo said. "Uh, I'm Jonathan. Jonathan Joestar. Pleased to meet you."

"Did you say Joestar?" the girl said in amazement. "No way! You're really that guy...!? You have a whole building named after you!"

"Oh, no" Jojo admitted. "That's probably my dad. He helped found this school, George Joestar."

"Wow!" she cheered and swooned. "I can't believe I've met such a celebrity! All the professors always thought you'd come here, but I never thought I'd get to meet you!" Suddenly, her interest in Jojo exploded out and her pose became suddenly relaxed around him. "I'm Erina Andrew! Daughter of the notorious Yacht-fiend Jacob Andrew of Andrew Co. Shipping."

"I've heard of them" Jojo said. "They make boats...for lack of better explanation." Erina laughed, mostly with a forced inflection. Now that the first word was out, soon the entire campus would be flocking to Jojo's feet and answering to his famous back and call. He could feel it happening already and breathed a powerful, Ripple breath of excitement.

"You looking forward to the next four years?" Erina asked. Despite the lump in his throat to say something else, Jojo smiled and nodded with a neutral

"Yeah...I am."

* * *

Back in the big town, where REO still lived, the police scoured the streets and alleys searching for some unknown terror.

"Bridge street, what's your report?" a cop asked into the radio.

"Negative" the radio answered. "Nothing's going on here. The Night's are nowhere to be found."

"D'Cree Street?"

"Nothing sir."

"Twelfth through eighth?"

"Nada. If someone's here they're hiding really damn well."

"Okay, good sweep" the cop praised. "I'll contact the south-side patrol and see if we can get some kind of contingent information together. Let's spread out to the west and north patrols and reinforce them. Remember, at seven tomorrow morning, the mayor's office will call off our search, so find everything you can!"

"Yes sir!" each cadet and cop reported in turn. Once the transmissions were through the leading reported held the com in hand a moment or so longer, then dropped down with a gaping hole in his head. In the shadows just behind him, behind the bloodied corpses of his fellow colleagues, sat Rosalisa with a book in hand. She closed the book and started jogging away. Without anyone noticing her, she sped almost all the way through town in no time at all thanks to her 'special power' and arrived in an alley to dark to be normal. In that veil of utter black sat the wheezing, torn apart body of a barely walking man.

"Nothing?" hissed the man's voice. Rosalisa shook her head and silently braced herself for the ensuing rage. A dumpster suddenly became dented and an invisible force rended a large cut in the side. "These headaches are driving me mad! Where is he!?"

"He may have gone already" Rosalisa said. The tattered man got up, stormed through the alley and backhanded the girl right across the face. She didn't even move, but a red mark did puff up quickly from the hit.

"Of course he's gone!" the man roared. "It's been a whole summer! Three months of no communication, no transmission, absolutely no word. I've begun to wonder if he's dead..."

"Master Dio!" a hurried voice shouted. Dio turned his tired and blood-marked head around and saw one of his wall-walking scouts standing, literally, on the wall parallel to the ground. "Speedwagon agreed to talk!"

"Finally" Dio weakly hissed. "At least he has some usefulness now...perhaps he has some kind of explanation..." So Dio and his woman sped through the black alleys and across the streets, avoiding the roaming cops and miscellaneous bandits driven mad by unexplained circumstance and finally arrived at a cheap motel near the inner border of the sleazy downtown strip. Dio was forced onto the shoulders of tow of his own barely-walking soldiers and they reached the room at last to knock on the door.

"Yes?" REO said. Dio forced himself in, held Speedwagon at the throat and stormed his way into the nearest wall to hold him up. "Is something wrong. Dude?"

"Jojo" Dio growled, bleeding still from his mouth and a cut on his head. "Where the hell is Jonathan Joestar!?"

"College" Speedwagon answered. Feeling the compulsion of weakness, Dio dropped Speedwagon and fell backwards onto a chair that was across the entire room. "That was cool!" Speedwagon noted, noticing how far Dio hovered to actually reach the sofa. Dio started breathing heavily as his guards and Rosalisa came into scene and locked the door behind them. "Alright Dio, you want a fair explanation? Jojo's at Presley Institute. It's about three hours on the highway from here if you speed, about an hour through the airport and terminals if you got a private jet. Can you drive or fly?"

"...who knows...on that one..." Dio muttered. "I apologize, Speedwagon. I'm still deathly tired from the battle. Rosalisa, please inquire our needed points for me." Dio went back to his heavy breathing as Rosalisa stepped forward and flipped through the pages in her notebook.

"Have you had any contact with Jojo in the past few months?" she asked.

"No one has" REO admitted. "Him and Zeppeli went off to Europe to study abroad for school."

"Is that the truth?" she asked, already knowing what REO's answer was. As she silently predicted, he just smiled and crossed his arms smugly. "We know where he is now and how far it is from here and how we can get there, but we still need to know about the surroundings. How open is the environment he is in to an areal bombing?"

"What's that matter?" REO asked. He noticed how unwavering and statue-like his inquisitor was, so he just sighed and answered "It's pretty open, I guess."

"She's not above doing it" Dio said. "The only thing she may be above doing is using honorable tactics in war."

"And this comes from a man like you, Dio?" Speedwagon noted skeptically. "Remember the Battle of Time Depot? You actually rigged a baby carriage to explode on us!"

"That was great..." Dio reminisced. "No, I do have honor. I only trap you when I know you won't die. I love a good, stand-up brawl. This bitch...MUSE...she's insane in her disregard of life. That and she's immensely powerful."

"What exactly happened?" Speedwagon asked. "Aside form the explosions at the mall...and the mall exploding I don't know anything." Dio smiled and sat back, organizing his thoughts and reforming the images of the horrific siege form only a few hours earlier.

"If I tell you this" Dio started, "you take me to Jojo. Deal?"

"Alright deal" Speedwagon promptly agreed. "Now start spilling. Why shouldn't you be in jail?"

"Because for once the Frozen Nights aren't responsible for this travesty" Dio said. "It was done by something...wholly inhuman..."


	8. Dio's Story

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

As to Speedwagons request, Dio narrated everything about the battle that he saw transpire:

It was nearly five hours ago. The mall had closed down and the gangs were all gathered in the central fountain foyer to meet their ghastly fates at the hands of MUSE. She would come in through the Northern wing and meet the terrible front at once. I and my Frozen Nights sat up on the highest level, observing like a band of godly hawks. All the gangs, including RJ's Zombie gang, were gathered to provide a front or their leaders to stand and fight behind. The Red Badge leader brandished his gun, which I would later find was useless, proudly. Even RJ himself was quite fearless despite the very recent release form physical therapy.

The Sisters, the Platinums, Zombies, Red Badges, and the Trinity Gang's all lined up with their respective leaders using the drained fountain as a sort of bunker. It seemed to me that they decided at last to unite against MUSE without contacting me. The three Trinity leaders took position at the second levels with their own sandbag bunkers to defend from. The cowboy, pirate and cyberpunk all seemed to be in position, and their soldiers were gathered all around the levels surrounding the central fountain.

I could see that their feeble structure was symbolically modified with all their hope and ambition to stop her. Heh. Fools. If they had seen the horrid truth like I had from the start they wouldn't have given all their strength to the weak mechanics that shot water into the air. Meanwhile, I could see the troops already routing from their fortified positions in the North wing of the mall. MUSE was already working her way through the legions of soldiers, leaving them broken and dead in the clothing departnemt.

"What's wrong!?" one of the Sister gang leaders shouted as she saw a gun-wielding girl come stumbling in with a trail of blood extending from her face.

"It's awful" the soldier moan. "She...she killed everyone! She just tapped them and chunks of them went spraying all over the place! She...She can't be stopped!"

"Yes she can" the other Sister leader said, trying in vain to raise the morale. "She may be powerful, but she's human."

"No she isn't!" the broken girl screamed. After she gave a few more weak breaths, she collapsed on the floor. It was definite now, that MUSE could be seen moving slowly forward from the wide arch over the store. Now she marched down the long hall that bordered with stores.

"Let her advance a couple more yards" the cowboy Trinity leader said into a walkie-talkie. "She won't survive our attack, no matter how tough she is!"

"Got it" the pirate man said. Wielding a powerful, recreated western rifle and three-burst automatic rifle respectively, both men were huddled behind their cover and praying. The manic cyberpunk waited behind MUSE, in one of the shops, with a custom-built welding torch that tore through steel and a chain saw. He was their ace. I know, because I have fought him before, and he was quite the specimen by which to define the concept of 'inhuman'. He had no fear, never showed regret or hesitation, and his only real words were 'kill' and 'maim'.

The Platinum and Red Badge leaders were in the farther back ranks with longer-range weapons. They were cowardly enough to hope their life would be preserved by a few moments if they were to hang back and let MUSE tire herself out before they had to act. Worthless. I'm glad they died. The Sister leaders stood out in the front, at the forward-most edge of the fountain. They wanted to be the first to fight, for some reason. Yena, the short-haired tomboyish girl you may have seen in the arcade one day or another, looked much more serious and stern than her partner, the long-haired and effeminate Lelia. Although they were in a war, both girls seemed to think it appropriate to dress in negatively-contrasting clothing that regardlessly looked like whore apparel to a man of my own sophisticated tastes.

Then, horror. MUSE approached. She, at the time, looked quite evil enough. She wore clingy but loose green pants that covered her long legs and Stiletto shoes with piercing-sharp heels. Her hands rested on her exaggerated hips in a 'holier than thou' manner. She wore a short, green racing jacket with the sleeves ripped off and a simple black shirt underneath that read her terrible moniker, 'MUSE' in golden letters. Her hair spilled out from her head like a chaotic rush of dark water from a bursting dam! It traveled down her back and to the brim of her pants. Her face was carved expertly to exude a sense of evil and superiority that reached even as far as I sat. Just looking at her sent shivers through my body.

And when she smiled...it made me feel like the sky was raining fire...

* * *

Back to the point. MUSE began her attack when the Trinity fired on her. The cowboy and the pirate both opened fire at the same time and found the terrible truth at that time as well. The bullets that were shot never reached her. They disappeared in the air before they touched her. None of them got to realize it, as they were too busy distracting this inhuman monster for the true doom from behind.

"Keep firing!" the cowboy shouted. "Don't give her an inch!"

"Shall we?" Yena asked her partner. The nudged noses one last time and separated. Suddenly, I saw the air between them violently distort, as if their separation had ripped apart the space that barely separated them. No doubt, I thought, this was the power of the Ghost Ripple! Both they and MUSE have such power! Meanwhile, I saw the cyber-villain ready to torch and saw MUSE apart from behind. He kept strangely silent, not typical behavior for a maniac like him. Once he was in range, he started up his torch and made a drastic slice for MUSE's back.

The next moment he was in pieces. His head floated in the air apart from his torso, and all his arms and legs were floating away. I couldn't believe it myself, but it happened. That was MUSE's power.

"Unamusing" I heard MUSE utter. "I heard these gangs were the best to fight in the city. How wrong was I?"

"Oh, you weren't too off" said Yena.

"We're actually quite brutal when we want to be" Leila added. Both girls had already circled around to opposite ends of MUSE, who looked at them both with confusion. Then, in unison, the girls announced their attack and a wave of harmonic, imperceivable doom blasted between them and broke the air. They called it **Iron Curtain**. MUSE was thrown into the walls and broke down the concrete and steel frame of a certain bordering store. She was forced to tumble in and gather herself within. The Sister leaders quickly reunited, their power obviously coming from the distance of their physical separation.

"How very curious" MUSE then announced from the ruins she created. By the looks on the Sister's faces, it would seem that she was unharmed. And indeed, as she strutted her way out, I too saw that she was fine. Her clothes weren't ripped at all. "You two also posses them? And you can compliment each other so unconsciously?"

"That's right" Yena said. "Our powerful bond as Sisters allows us to create a powerful vacuum that extends from point A..."

"...to point B" Lelia finished. "Even acting alone, our powers can surely overcome yours, you cold-eyes bitch!"

"Hmm" MUSE quickly scoffed. She tilted her head to the side and began to speak to them. "I can honestly say that I doubt that. You two are just a couple greenhorns. Your Stands are barely even children compared to mine. My powers manifested in the womb! I had more awareness of my environment at that time than any living being otherwise would! My mind is already millenniums ahead of this feeble race, and my Stand is a perfect reflection of that awesome power..." I saw her raise up a hand, and then from that hand came the shadow of another menacing and shadowy hand. The rest of the gang leaders had stopped firing to watch and hopefully anticipate some new move.

I saw it, though. You see, shortly after Jojo left, my own Ghost Ripple started developing against my will. I had been recording the severity and quantity of my convulsions accordingly, and my progress had been a very reflection of his. However, as I had not been treated, my Ghost Ripple ,or 'Stand' as it is otherwise known, was able to progress and almost fully develop as of now. I could see the powers others could not, and in much more elaborate ways, but I still could not understand them. When I saw MUSE drawing out her Stand, I became speechless with fear. From that hand that came from her own body extended a number of thick and writhing tentacles, also casting shadows in the air for me to see.

"I have the power of a true god" MUSE explained. "You see, my hands are able to grasp anything I fancy and take it in. I have the power of absolute destruction, the most primal ability for any living thing. My Stand can eat other Stands!!!" This took the Sister's aback in a terrible way. Even I, in my narrow frame of understanding, was able to acknowledge such fear. The power to eat another's life-force in living form, another's Stand. Such power was unthinkable for me. "And that's not all" she daringly continued. "With the powers of the Stands I eat, I can replicate them and use them myself! I have already met and eaten the Stands of many great warriors, but all they could do was satiate my hunger for a time. With your powers, girls, I dare say I will be able to rethink my next approach. I won't just announce myself and walk into an expecting trap. Instead, I shall level an entire town and search for the survivors to reap their own Stands for my own!"

That was my limit. I could bare to hear this bitch talk on and on about her powers no more! I acted!

"Rosalisa" I commanded, "please try to restrain her for me. I'm going in!" At that moment, my partner Rosalisa enacted her own Stand and pulled out her notebook. With lightning-fast scrawling she scribbled a foregin tongue onto the page and I jumped. From the third story I jumped with my legs straight and my arms crossed, preparing to enter the battle proper in my own well-known style. My Stand kicked in, as it tends to do in dire situations, and pushed me upward just before hitting the ground. Now I was caught up in the fight and introduced myself in my obvious style. With a nice, chilling, heart-shitting

**Wryyyyyy....**"And who are you?" MUSE asked me. It was then that I noticed how skewed my perception truly was. She was nearly my height. A tall woman and one with a stance infinitely prouder even than mine! Still, my tongue did not waver despite the fear. I huffed at her derisively and turned my cheek to her while wagging my finger.

* * *

"You must be that bad girl these kids are so afraid of" I chided her. "What did you do? Push them in the dirt? Throw sand at them?" I could see that MUSE was moving to my treatment, and that she was quite against being viewed as inferior, so I continued in the hopes that I could throw her gait completely off balance. "Such a naughty girl. Wait until these kids tell their parents! Your father will not be pleased."

"Hmph" she scoffed. "What are you doing, little man? Trying to irk me out of my concentration? It won't work."

"Who cares if it works or not" I thusly argued. "I've not yet met a living being, man or woman, that I couldn't put down or beat up. I intend to do just that to you..." And so I prepared to fight. I could already see Rosalisa's efforts in effect, as her own Stand left from her body and softly held MUSE's stand from behind in a lock. MUSE didn't notice and I rushed her. My arms held back so I could swing with either arm, I chose to use my left arm by stepping into the right and throwing my hand into her softly curved chin. I could see that she was shocked, even scared, when her Stand did not respond, and I succeeded in opening the door to punishment.

A kick to her chest and she staggered away. A sweep of her legs and she fell, then I caught her by her long hair and threw her with both my hands into a metal-frame bench. It broke and she toppled over the floor to finally stop under the heels of the terrible Sisters.

"Thanks, Dio" Yena said. I licked my lips threateningly and grinned with the menace I could muster past the fear.

"Oh, don't thank me yet" I growled. "I'm not nearly done with her." Just then, I heard her laughing into the floor. I now this strategy, a regular for any serious villain who is out to kill. She wanted to psych us out by making us think the pain and one-sidedness of the fight was just a game to her. It worked on the girls, but not on me. I flipped over the broken bench, then flipped once more to land on both feet on her head. That shut her up for a second, but then the laughter came back even harder than before. So, to counter that evil snickering, I started laughing as well, grabbed her by the collar, and punched her away. All the while as I beat her I laughed and she laughed even more so. When she tried to fight back I disjointed her wrist or fractured her leg and she kept laughing, but I knew her power would not return until I wanted it to. Rosalisa's bind held up wonderfully.

The fight was mine!!!

* * *

"So then why're you looking like shit right now?" Speedwagon asked, breaking Dio's narrative. Dio scoffed, now feeling fine enough, and wiped away his blood.

"It was then that I had an attack" Dio said. "My own Stand started coming out much more violently than before, and I passed out. I'm not sure about the details after than, but it seems nothing good happened. When I awoke, I was in an alley near the mall, Rosalisa and I the last of the Frozen Nights that ventured inside, and all I could see were the burning ruins of the mall I was just in."

"Unfortunately" Rosalisa began, "my Stand was overwhelmed shortly after Lord Dio was incapacitated, and I have no memory of the events either."

"That sucks" REO said. "But, if that's really all you know, I'll believe it. I better tell all this to Jojo ASAP, right?"

"I wouldn't bother him so much" Dio said. "Right now, and for quite a while, he and I had a mutual level of understanding. Jojo knows as much about MUSE that I do, but without the term Stand or the obscene bleeief in such a god-complex as hers."

"What about the gangs?" Speedwagon inquired. "Did any of them make it out alive?"

"The Sister gang leaders are still alive" Rosalisa said. "Their Stands are still active. IT is possible, though very unlikely, that they are still fighting MUSE somewhere."

"How do you know?" Speedwagon demanded.

"My Stand" Rosalisa began, "Evanescence, allows me the power of 'documentation'. I can keep records of anyone with a Stand no matter where they are, and using a complex series of theorems I have created I can manipulate the behavior of humans and control other's Stands to a limited extent."

"Okay" Speedwagon said. "Crazy as this sounds, I think I can believe you, too. What about you, Dio? You obviously have a Stand. What can it do?"

"If you give me some paper" Dio said, "I may be able to draw it for you. It's just terrifying enough for me not to forget what it looks like. Hideous black skin, sharp claws, rows and rows of never-ending teeth...oh, and huge wings..."

"So..." Speedwagon wittily began, "you lied. It seems, given the circumstances, you _could_ fly to get to Jojo if you needed to." Dio glared up at Speedwagon who immediately raised his hands in peace and smiled. "Deal's a deal, right? I'll take you to Jojo and tell him everything you told me."

"Thank you" Dio sighed. Speedwagon walked toward the phone, brimming with glee and a shiny smile. Tonight, he had finally achieved one of his most prolific dreams. He had finally pulled one over Dio Brando himself! Still, the chocking events that Dio lived only served to cast a dark shadow over the cityscape that Speedwagon could see. The rising smoke from the explosion at the mall personified the intense duress that Dio must have felt. This despair and loathing, an utterly depressing kind of hate for some unknown enemy.

It could only be coming from MUSE. Thus ends the first part of the epic. Now what...?


	9. Epic Changes

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

At the Presley University, the first semester was starting, and Jojo was finding his niche within the tight social fabric of ascribed young men and women trying to prove their worth. The jockish trust-fund fiends looking to appease their higher-ups for sports scholarships liked him because he had such sagely knowledge of the human body and helped them lift. The poetics who got into the school of their own personal goals liked him because he had such a deep humanitarian connection with the everyman. The socialite frat-boys liked him because of his fun-loving nature. The girls loved him for obvious, more carnal reasons, and because he was so caring. It was only a few days ago that Jojo was credited with saving one of the teacher's from falling out of the second story window. Granted, he was just lucky that he was walking by because he was lost, but he still saved them on the fly with his miracle catch.

He was the envy of everyone and they were happy about it. The fact that someone was considered Jojo's friend was something that could catapult them up near his own level. In short, he was as gleaming as the energy that coursed through him with every breath. Other than that, college life proceeded normally. His classes, while boring, were not impossible and he found a way to make sense of the information. Basic economic planning, accounting, leadership, advanced sociology and business psychology. His professors all shared such a vast wealth of knowledge that Jojo doubted himself at times when he scribbled hurriedly in his notebook, not caring that his peers took notes on their laptops in class.

Jojo eagerly went back to his room one day, in the hopes of contacting William Zeppeli to report on how wonderful his stay thus far had been, but a note at the door stopped him. The note, it seemed was addressed from Zeppeli to Speedwagon, but it was thumb-tacked to Jojo's door in the honor's hall. More mysteriously, no one without a proper identification was allowed into the honor hall, and Jojo knew Zeppeli and Speedwagon were not on the list.

"Odd" Jojo remarked. "What could this be?" Jojo, out of his own respect, decided not to open the letter and instead took it inside and replaced it with a sticky note. His note was also addressed to Speedwagon and read _Come Inside, REO_.

"Guys, please move aside" Speedwagon pleaded at the hall entrance. He was being held up by two security officers who did not recognize him or allow him to pass. "A dear friend of mine is expecting me!"

"If you give us the name" one guard said "we can page him for you."

"Well," Speedwagon began nervously. _Shit. Jojo isn't really expecting me. I just need to get in before he does!_

"Excuse us" one girl politely said. Two preppy young women who boarded in the hall wanted to get inside. Speedwagon, being the regal ladies-man he was, moved aside and even took off his bowler-derby hat to wink and smile at the girls. They giggled, flashed their respective ID badges and were allowed inside.

"You can do me a favor, right?" Speedwagon pleaded. "The truth is, I was trying to surprise my friend by showing up in his dorm room. It's a close family matter." The guards glared curiously at him.

"I thought you said you were his friend" One guard nearly growled.

"I am!" Speedwagon said. "I mean, I'm close like family! Phew." Speedwagon turned away and looked at his hand behind him. _It's not going well. I may have to...use it..._ He began slowly clenching his fist, forming an invisible force in his grip, and slowly brought it around to his side, stealthily hiding his obviously clenched fist in his pocket. "So. You ain't letting me by?"

"Sorry" the guard said. "Those are the rules, for the protection of the student body, especially the honor students!"

"Excuse me" called a young man's voice. Upon hearing it, Speedwagon released his grip and smiled at the voice of Jojo. However, there was still the sense of dread that accompanied the fact that he beat Speedwagon there already and found the note. "This is Jonathan Joestar. I may be expecting a man by the name of Ronald Edward O. Speedwagon to come visit me today. Please send him up if he comes."

"Yes sir" the guard replied through the two-way. "We'll send him up when we see him." The guard then turned to Speedwagon, who was already tipping his hat and smiling humorously with his drivers license out. "Room 594. Try to go a little slow, if you can."

"I'll try" Speedwagon said. He was inside, finally, and marched slowly up the first stairs he found. Then he broke a cold sweat and started rushing.

* * *

With a burst, Speedwagon threw open the door and saw within three men his age. One black man with cornrows on a couch, one shorter young man with glasses, and of course the mountain of a man that was Jojo.

"Ever heard of knocking, numb-nuts?" the glasses wearing young man said.

"Is he your friend, Jojo?" the black man asked.

"Yes" Jojo said. He leaned back in the armchair against the corner, which was oddly dim in regard to the rest of the bright room, and had his fingers woven in a knit. "Gentlemen, please leave us. We have some...private matters to discuss."

"Sure" said the black man. They both got up and returned to their respective rooms in the dorm and left the two boys alone.

"Jojo" Speedwagon began, "you...you saw that letter Zeppeli sent me, didn't you?" Jojo had not read it yet and hadn't intended to, as that would have been an unjust thing of him to do, but he played his ruse far enough for Speedwagon to willingly spill the information anyway. To that effect, he just lowered his head and glared through his lashes. Speedwagon's body became rigid with tension.

"I want you to know" Jojo began, "how disappointed I am that this matter could not be addressed to me personally." Speedwagon showed visible signs of breaking under the pressure, perhaps out of sincerity, but held strong. "How could you, REO? We've been friends nearly since birth..."

"Trust me, Jojo" Speedwagon said with a quiver he quickly swallowed. "I didn't want to know this anymore than you, and I definitely didn't want to find out this way either! Believe me, we had the best intentions in mind to-"

"Oh?" Jojo lowed back. "'We?' He's in on this too?"

"He didn't have a choice" Speedwagon explained. "It's his business...your health."

_Zeppeli?_ Jojo assumed, knowing his foster father was one of the few people that really knew about his health status and Ripple skills that contributed to it. Now the information was coming out. "I still can't believe it..." Jojo dramatically stated.

"Nor can I" Speedwagon said, "but it's true! Just look!" Jojo looked at Speedwagon and tried to observe everything see what he wanted to see. Speedwagon put his right hand palm-up and it started twitching. Jojo could see a very minute change in the air inside Speedwagon's grip. He could see some unholy, dark ripples forming solid rings with two concentric circles that linked together and dropped out of his hand. Speedwagon gave a heavy sigh and gripped his hand. It sounded like chains rattling. "I call it, _**Trapt**_. This is my Ghost Ripple...my Stand." Jojo stood straight up in shock.

"...wha-what?" Jojo stuttered. He motioned to touch the chain, but his hand passed straight through. Even with the ripple breathing in continuous effect and the energy coursing in his blood he couldn't touch it. "What the hell? Speedwagon, what's going on?" Speedwagon disengaged his Stand, making the nearly invisible lines vanish entirely, and grunted with confusion. Confusion turned to dismay, then dismay to shock and frustration.

"You didn't read the letter!?" Speedwagon shouted.

"Of course not" Jojo shouted back. "I'm not so evil to read someone else's private note. I wanted you to tell me of your own free will!"

"Well..." Speedwagon began shamefully. "I guess I already did. Let's just both read the letter then. It will explain everything."

"Wait a moment, though" Jojo insisted. "Mr. Zeppeli knows more about the Ghost Ripple, or 'Stand', than anyone else, right?"

"Hopefully" Speedwagon sighed. "He has one too..." Jojo felt a shock of terror that pushed him far back into the corners of his mind. In his desperation to seek escape in the absurd events that unfolded, his mind conjured the image of a barren desert, and then he passed out in the sand...

* * *

"Jojo!" barked the distorted voice of Speedwagon into his friend's face. "Jojo, wake up man! You passed out!" Jojo slowly opened his eyes to adjust, then shot up from the floor. Only he wasn't on the floor anymore. All three men in the dorm lifted him onto his bed and with his shocking wake up he hit his head and regained his blurred vision.

"Owww...." Jojo whined in a manly way. "Okay, I think I'm okay now. Where's that letter?"

"That may not be a great idea" Speedwagon tried to convince. "You passed out when I mentioned it, you might have a heart attack if you _read_ it."

"I'll take my chances" Jojo said. He found the letter on his desk, hoped out of bed and rubbed his head on the way over. Disregarding the good merit of respecting Speedwagon's privacy, he unfolded the paper and started reading Zeppeli's nearly illegible handwriting.

_To Robert Edward O. Speedwagon.  
Unfortunately, I must bring you this news in utter private. My research has confirmed what I dreaded, the Ghost Ripple is in fact incurable. It manifests as a sort of guardian in a semi-physical state. A sort of poltergeist that can be bent to one's will. The reason for the unstable reaction in yours truly was caused by an unharmonious joint of effort. His Ripple, or 'Stand' as I've heard them called, was not working with the commands of his mind. He was unaware of how much he could control it. I theorize that the more powerful Stands will act in this way upon emerging.  
And now the news that must be communicated to Jojo. Try to break it to him gently. Firstly, tell him that I have a Stand and it has impacted my life and logic none. I am the same as I always was with the addition of a controlled spirit within me. The Stand is a reflection of the owner's willpower and dormant Ripple. However, one of a trained Ripple such as Jojo will have a Stand with much more initial power. Where an average person's Stand will equate to the physical power of a gorilla, Jojo's will be closer to a fully armed gunship...possibly manned by gorillas.  
Break this news to him calmly, Speedwagon, and see if he can interact with your Stand yet. If he can, it means he is very close to harboring the dormant power of his Ghost Ripple to use in the future. Tell him that everything has a purpose, the Stand not excluded. Tell him I trust in his decisions. Tell him anything you believe will help, just make sure he finds out calmly. Any unneeded stress and duress can cause spikes in his manifestation rate, but just let him know the honest truth. That everything's going to be alright._

_ I have even taken the liberty of naming his Stand for him. Using the techniques of ancient prophecy drawing, I randomly selected a card fro ma deck of Arcana Tarot cards and kept that name. His Stand will be called 'The World'. Take care of yourself, Robert.  
__ William Antonio Zeppeli._

"...The World?" Jojo repeated. He looked up from the note with an odd sense of hope, and smiled as he tossed the note back to Speedwagon. "A gunship manned by gorillas...?" Speedwagon scanned over the paper and chuckled when he read the line.

"He's a weird-o, ain't he?" he said. Jojo kept smiling, despite the nerve-wrecking tension in his chest, and a warm glow of hope radiated out. Suddenly, amidst the chaotic mess of emotion in Jojo's room and the confusion in the world to be, a rolling blackout occurred. "What the hell?" Speedwagon demanded.

"Something tells me" Jojo said forebodingly, "this isn't natural. REO, something's up!"

"You're telling me..." Speedwagon replied. Over the panic in the halls, Jojo could hear the clinking of a chain near Speedwagon's chest. "Trapt is going nuts on its own. There's another Stand user nearby...he must've been found out."

Based on the tone and inflection of horror Speedwagon used when referring to 'he', Jojo's eyes widened and his jaw clenched in anger as he assumed the worst of his guesses. "Dio...?" he growled.

The mystery begins.


	10. The Boy Named Sue

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

With the threat of a possible attack by MUSE on Jojo's own campus, Jojo and Speedwagon raced across the grounds, ignoring the warnings to stay indoors and obey the campus police force's instructions.

"So" Jojo began, "you think it might be MUSE?"

"Not her" REO said. "Stand users can somewhat sense other Stand users. If she's as strong as Dio say she is I'd have more than a mild headache right now."

"How long have you had your Stand, Speedwagon?" Jojo asked.

"Only a little while" Speedwagon said. "It developed around the same time as Dio's actually. Only his is...much stronger than mine. Hold on!" Suddenly, they stopped in the middle of the darkened grounds. The sky was already pitch black from the evening clouds that rolled in. Speedwagon looked around to find a building that would best be suited to supply the power but everything looked far to archaic and old to him. "I've got an idea. Stand back, I'm going to use Trapt!"

"Right" Jojo said, stepping back. _Now, let me see this Ghost Ripple in action. Speedwagon, show me what your Stand can do! _Speedwagon summoned his Stand into his hands as a chain that Jojo could just barely see. Then he took it in both hands and started quickly spinning it out of one hand and keeping it steady in the other. He looked around, this time for something taller, and finally found a target.

"There it is!" Speedwagon announced. He spun the chain overhead, the invisible clinking heard all around, and tossed it like a lasso at a telephone pole. Jojo could see the blurred air moving where the chain seemed to be, and also saw that the blur stopped at a transformer on top of the pole. "My Stand, Trapt, is a psychic chain! I can use it as a normal, invisible steel chain in combat, but out of combat it has astounding properties! I can channel the knowledge from anything I set the chain into, living or not, and observe from those objects like psychic cameras!"

"That's amazing" Jojo awed. "But, I don't seem to follow why you're reading a transformer's mind." Speedwagon hung his head and sighed, aware that his explanation may have been a little over the Stand-less Jojo.

"I'm trying to figure out" Speedwagon explained "where the electricity came from when it was turned off."

"Ah!" Jojo exclaimed. "These Ghost Ripples...these Stands are unbelievable! What else can that chain do?"

"I can read peoples minds" Speedwagon said "if I hook it into people's heads and I can paralyze people temporarily if I stick them in the back."

"But it still has to act like a normal chain" Jojo explained to himself. "Wow. And I'll have one of these too? What will it be?"

"Who knows?" Speedwagon said. He retrieved his chain with a hard yank and deactivated it once it was all in his hands. "I know where to go now."

"Lead the way then" Jojo said. He followed quickly behind his friend through the green court of the unlit campus towards the nearby off-site maintenance building.

* * *

"I am done" said a mysterious voice in the darkness. A random maintenance man was huddled fearfully in the corner with his mop tightly in hand. He was planning with lips tightly clutched, to rush this particular individual who had rendered the campus pitch black and then worked mysteriously and suspiciously on the computer console in the main electronic control room. "I am now proceeding to leave" he said again. The maintenance man peeked just barely around the corner and saw him begin outside. He was wearing a trench coat with gold-colored hemming and some odd pants that were covered by a myriad of belts at the waist. He wore no shirt, and many welts from what looked like whips were visible all over his torso.

_That's it_ the maintenance man told himself. _Screw just sitting here! I'm going for it!_ "RAAAAAHHH!!!" The man ran at the saboteur full force with the mop held overhead. "Get out of here!" The stranger raised up his hand and made a 'stop' motion. Suddenly, the attacking electrician found himself stopped and bounding backwards. He also found that his eyes were extremely dry and he couldn't keep them open without feeling pain.

"You're my first confirmed kill of the day" the stranger said, looming menacingly over the downed man. He stomped hard on the back of his neck and pushed hard. "How lucky for me...a nobody killing another nobody. I guess our brood just isn't meant to exist, right?" Suddenly, the door to the room flew open, and a blond man with a bowler hat came charging in with finger hotly pointing down the accused man.

"You there!" Speedwagon shouted with the hulking Jojo observing intently behind him. "Identify yourself!"

"Who are you guys!?" the stranger demanded.

"We're campus police!" Jojo said, Speedwagon following along with a nod. "Are you the one who shut off the power!?"

"Yes, I am" the stranger admitted. "I can tell that you, sir, are a Stand user" he said, pointing to Speedwagon. "I can also tell that you, the other man, have a Stand trying desperately to get out. No matter. You're both nobodies just like me...and this poor sap." He pointed down at the body of a man. As he removed his foot and tapped at the body, it rolled over and revealed the cracking husk of what used to be a human face. Jojo and Speedwagon shared a gasp and glared in shock at the obviously dead body.

"You killed that man...?" Jojo said. He quickly became infuriated and righteously disgusted with this strange murderer. He gritted his teeth and started shaking, tensing his muscles, growling. Before he could let out a vindictive scream, however, he sighed and started to breathe with the power of the Ripple. "You are a Stand user."

"That I am" the stranger said in a sad way. "Then again, I'm also a fairly useless guy. I'm just another boy to them, a boy named Sue. I'm charmed, although I can tell you're disgusted by me..."

"Huh?" Speedwagon grunted.

"He was just a useless trash" Sue continued, still standing in pitch darkness aside from the light at his back from the computer console he had finished with earlier, "that wanted to get in their way. I stopped him to teach him a lesson."

"Who is they?" Jojo asked.

"They don't need anymore trouble" Sue answered. "Now, you two guys, I have to stop you too. Meet my Stand. I call him Cash." Jojo saw something strange and huge start to slip out from behind Sue but couldn't make it out. He did notice, however, that Speedwagon looked particularly frightened. He could see the Stand's true form. He straightened up, however, and summoned his own into his hands. "That's your Stand?" Sue asked. "Where's the rest of it?"

"You wanna find out?" Speedwagon taunted. Suddenly, Jojo saw a sort of colorless lightning streak rip through the air and smash Sue in the face. He spun around backwards and regained his footing, stepping on and then through the dried husk that used to be a man.

"Do you see?" Sue said, motioning to the corpse. "Cash works fast. He can take the moisture from anything he touches and transfer it into me. I'll never run out of water as long as Cash remains active, and I can siphon the water from a normal person's body within less than a minute. A Stand user like you, however, may take slightly longer."

_What ridiculous power!_ Jojo noted. _I can't just stand here and admire all this, though. Speedwagon needs assistance!_ "Speedwagon, tell me where to go!" Jojo demanded.

"Use the Ripple!" Speedwagon said, spinning his chain for another hit. He threw it again, but Sue brought his Stand out in front and the chain bounced right off.

* * *

"Cash is a sponge Stand" Sue said. "As such, the more water he absorbs the more sponge-like consistency he gets. At this point he can deflect most blows without losing much water at all, and I don't feel a thing!"

"That's right!" Speedwagon suddenly realized. _The Ghost Ripple and Sun Ripple that Jojo has work on the same level, but they're different frequencies! He can interact with the Stand if he uses the Ripple!_ Jojo had already theorized this and had his fist wound and charged up to punch. He took a large step forward, was suddenly noticed by the effeminately-faced Sue, and a large blur shot out before him.

"ORA!" Jojo bellowed. With his arm crackling with the energy of the sun, he punched Cash in what seemed like the face. It worked, but only partially. A light imprint from Jojo's punch appeared on Sue's neck and he stepped back. The damage from the Stand that carried over was enough to blow through the spongy properties and force Sue backwards. At that time, Speedwagon hooked Sue's head with his chain and started reading his mind. Once he was done collecting information, which took him only a few moments, he jerked the chain down and forced Sue's head to the solid concrete floor. _I can tell it's there_ Jojo told himself. Then, the blur disappeared and reappeared around Sue.

"Oh shit!" Speedwagon cursed. "Jojo, move out of the way!" Jojo made a desperate roll away, but felt something trying to drag him away. Cash had reformed around Sue, from what Jojo could vaguely ascertain, and was grabbing his leg with one of its otherworldly new tentacles.

"You're both just as useless as me" Sue said. "No, maybe even more so. Neither of you can even hurt me properly, but I can kill you easily." Jojo suddenly had to scream in pain, as he felt the moisture draining from his leg where Cash gripped him. He tried to crawl away, but instead was getting pulled in. "I call this the Desert Curtain" Sue said. "Once you enter the space within a meter radius of me, you're body will be drained of all water and moisture within only a few seconds."

"Hang on, Jojo!" Speedwagon shouted. He hooked his chain around Jojo's arm, which he felt as a cool, steady chain, and started pulling. Jojo grabbed the chain where he could and wrapped it around his fist for a proper grip. Still, despite their combined efforts of pull and tug, Jojo was still getting quickly absorbed into Cash.

"Say goodbye to life, trash" Sue said. Jojo groaned angrily, then snapped. He stopped pulling, yanked the chain away from Speedwagon, and let himself get pulled off his back and to his feet. Then, he took in a powerful breath and let he Ripple cascade through his whole body. The spongy Stand gave way to Jojo's stronger Ripple energy as a counter-Stand energy and let Jojo get close to Sue with his chain-wrapped hand drawn far back.

"Say goodbye to your teeth, murderer" Jojo said with a smile. Then, taking a hopping step past Sue he threw his body forward and caught Sue's face wit his metal-wrapped fist. With a strong and resonant "**ORA!**" he threw Sue against a wall and let the blood splatter around. Some got on his face, but he ignored it. His leg, as a result from the initial grab, was not dry to a critical point but the skin was very brittle and cuts were appearing just from him standing over Sue with an overpowering aura of victory.

"Way to go, Jojo!" Speedwagon cheered.

"We aren't done, are we?" Jojo asked.

"Stands are still Ripples" Speedwagon said. "If you can't breath you can't use them. Judging by the way his nose is impacted into his skull and the amount of blood he's losing from his mouth, I'd say he won't be using his Stand for a while."

"Good" Jojo said. "Let's get him to the authorities."

"We can't" Speedwagon said. "Once he gets his breath back he'll just sue his Stand and kill more people for whatever reason. Anyway, bringing him in wouldn't do us any good, anyway. He came here under the assumption that it would be his last mission for them."

"That's right" Jojo said, "you read his mind, didn't you?"

"Only a few important details" Speedwagon said. "He works for a gang in the nearest city and he was sent here to deliver a warning to a rival gang nearby. If we turn the power back on, you'll see what I mean..."

"Why?" Jojo asked. Speedwagon motioned to the console and started typing on it, undoing the codes Sue typed in before from his memories. Jojo stood behind him, still reeling with grief over the life that had to be lost. He looked at the broken, dusty husk that used to be a man and sighed solemnly. Then he brought his hands together and prayed.

"Got it" Speedwagon said. Jojo looked up from his prayer and was sent immediately into shock. "I should have told you when I could, but we were interrupted. He came here with me a while ago as part of a deal. I'm surprised you haven't seen him."

"I'm even more surprised" Jojo said. On the monitor, the one screen where every camera feed could be individually monitored, a preset number of screens all showed the same message spelled out in the lights around campus. The streetlights and building lights that cast bright streams of light into the campus court added the dramatic shadows and lighting necessary to spell out, in lights,  
'Dio Must Die'

Jojo was forced to shift emotions once more, this time from solemn and resentful to enraged and righteous. His eternal rival was in his city, a flood of nefarious people were coming in from all sides, and his Stand had not even developed yet. How would he stave off all the evil around him and make the world around him good and righteous for the people? Where would he find this power. He looked down into his hand for the answer, and saw the dark afterimage of his mysterious new budding power echoing his tightly0clutched, shaking fist.

_I will do it _Jojo told himself. _Whatever comes at me, I will take this power and hold it high with honor, righteousness and dignity! I will defend my world from all evil and darkness, no matter what! _And so, justice filling his mind, he raised his fist up above his head and leaned back to look at the heavens in his mind that symbolized the advent of his power!


	11. Dio Must Die & Starski's Lovebugs

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"Dio Must Die" Jojo read aloud. The power was restored and the temporary curfew was lifted. Still, there were things that proved very unsettling. While Jojo and Speedwagon left the room to feign ignorance, Sue's body was gone and the other body was reduced utterly to sand. Perhaps Sue had somehow survived and escaped? Regardless, what really worried Jojo was the fact that someone had gone through such elaborate methods to taunt or warn or...possible declare war on Jojo's favorite person.

"You agree, right?" Speedwagon said. They both stood atop the honors dormitory to look at the lights that wouldn't go back to normal. Most of them were broken, the staff found, so this pattern could be discerned all night long. Most of the more scholarly but uneducated people on campus looked at those lights and likened 'Dio' to its Italian root for 'God'. A nihilistic statement by some deranged genius. Jojo knew the truth.

"I don't agree" Jojo said, surprising Speedwagon. "Dio is an untrustworthy and horrible man. Still, killing him will only give him a sense of pride in knowing that's how far the world had to go to stop him. If anyone made a motion to kill him it would only make him enthusiastic." That's when something startling hit Jojo. That was exactly what was happening. "Speedwagon! Do you know where Dio is!?"

"Sorry, Jojo" Speedwagon unfortunately responded. "He split once I was out of his sight. Besides, in your current state, confronting him would be a huge mistake. His Stand is a lot more powerful than mine and it hasn't fully developed yet!"

"How long does a Stand's development take?" Jojo asked.

"Well" Speedwagon began, taking out his chain Trapt in his hands, "once I started experiencing the symptoms, Mr. Zeppeli let them play out and my Stand was 'born'. He says many people are born with them and can use them out of the womb, and those are the Stands that are usually much more deadly. It only took me about two weeks to get it in a solid shape that I could extend indefinitely."

"Two weeks" Jojo said. He looked at his arm, and he saw the nearly invisible echo as he moved it. "Then, provided I can control my Stand, I will train non-stop for two weeks and meet Dio head on! If he gets wind that someone wants to fight him, and here of all places, total chaos and turmoil could break out! Who knows what forces are conspiring against him even now! And surely he will find a way to get me involved."

"What about classes?" Speedwagon asked. Jojo realized his friend was right. How could he schedule around the demanding and strict routines that were required of him as a full-time professional student? The answer wasn't obvious, but the echo of movement that chased his arm as he raised it up and formed a powerful fist reassured him: he would find a way.

So Jojo retired, continuing to feign ignorance and Speedwagon left for his foundation's nearby temporary base. Under his financial power and Zeppeli's knowledge, the 'Speedwagon Eastern Paranormal Research and Study Foundation', or just Speedwagon Foundation for short. In that base somewhere in the nearby city, Zeppeli sipped cautiously from a glass of wine and read over the newspaper headlines. There was abnormal activity on the rise.

"I'm back" Speedwagon announced. He walked into Zeppeli's horribly unorganized room with papers covering the floor at his leisure and sat in a chair, ignoring the books stacked on it. "Jojo took it well. We even found another Stand user who tried to kill us."

"Ah" Zeppeli replied. "I trust you and Jojo knocked him out cold, eh?"

"I think we did" Speedwagon answered. "Somehow, he got up and his body was gone by the time we got back to it. It's weird." Zeppeli didn't find the information as 'weird' as Speedwagon did, but he did find it interesting. He got up and somehow managed to avoid stepping on any papers as he made his way across the room.

"Apparently" he began, "our Stands are unconscious reflections of our inner, latent power as not Ripple users but living beings. Anything with a sentient mind can inherit a Stand, not just humans. I've also read some interesting stories about men who implanted their minds within their Stands and had their Stands inhabit inanimate objects to live forever."

"That is very interesting" Speedwagon said.

"I have theorized" Zeppeli began, "that if one could discover the ancient methods of this mind-melding process, one would be able to place a Stand within another person for safekeeping. Then, that Stand could go on to that person's offspring, inheriting the original mind and memories of the Stand user who placed the Stand there. Robert, I have a strong, almost burning suspicion, that one such person may already exist in this world."

"Really?" Speedwagon said in surprise.

"And not just the world" Zeppeli continued, "but within this very city! We must be ever alert and wise! Do not take a single step out of place, especially around the construction yards!"

"Right" Speedwagon agreed. They both knew already that those yards were no place for anyone of rational mind to go, and for obvious reasons.

* * *

Last month, a gang of scoundrels took that construction yard where a whole block of minor housing projects were being built and established a base. In that month, each police person who intruded into that gang's territory was found later crucified at the borders. The shock to the city was so terrible that the entire neighborhood was issued a warning to not go near the yard at any time. That gang is still active, and tonight they have made plans to raid the nearest bank in a pitch-black last-minute robbery.

The gang's leader, a man who stood in total darkness, laid out the plans for this raid to his fellow thieves.

"It's airtight, boss" one gang member praised.

"We're gunna blow shit up 'round here!" another member attested.

"Yo" a younger member began, "I'm seeing an empty space in these plans, man. How we getting into the safe?"

"Leave that to me" the boss said in his resonate, deep voice. "I haven't gotten to this place off of other people's success you know. It's all been me. This legacy of ours, all this esteem and power we have, it's all because of me and my power!"

"Hell yeah!" a gang member shouted. The one who brought up the flaw, a much younger man than the others, was curious. He hadn't been with the gang long enough to know about this power that everyone was so excited over. Suddenly, a man came bursting into the room with a shivering leg and dislocated shoulder.

"Boss" he said breathlessly, "there's someone here to see yo-" And in mid-sentence, he stopped. A brief moment of tension passed and he fell forward. A knife was lodged to the handle in the back of his skull. The boss, furious, stormed out of the room. He was a tall, near 6'6 black man with a golden chain clipped from his ear to his lip.

"Who the fuck" the tall man began "is bothering Starski's Lovebugs!? Come out, fool!"

"Quiet down" a voice that can only be called heavenly and demonic called from the rafters of a still unbuilt building. "Don't you know? People are trying to sleep!"

"Who's there!?" Starski shouted. "Show yourself, bitch!" A dark figure dropped down from an unknown vantage point and landed a distance away.

"Stay back boys" a gang member said, ushering the others back into the shack. "Let the boss handle this. And kid, keep your eyes open. He's gonna use his power for sure!" The younger man of the gang kept his eyes watching intently for signs of supernatural presence. From the darkness emerged several men all dressed in rather crudely assembled armor of leather and football shoulder pads with spikes. Their faces were spiked across the forehead with studs and their hair had the similar distaste of a super-goth/punk mixture. They were sore to Starski's eyes.

"You're a rough man, I can tell" the soothingly evil voice said once more before coming out from the black. His figure was slender but cut like a diamond. He wore black pants with dark-red stripes running from the inside hem to the crotch. Above that was a skin-tight black suit of under-armor that showed through a loose and billowy jacket that reached just below his waist. The jacket was adorned with studs and rips and had a terrible skull articulately painted in a painful way on the back. His face was as soothing as it was obviously demented and evil. Golden-blond hair that hung down from his head elegantly.

"Your Stand" that man began, "what is its name?" Starski was taken aback in fear for a moment but kept it withdrawn for the pride of his men. He invoked his Stand, which showed up as a very feint, almost invisible pulsing all around his body. Then it walked out beside him to stand by for combat. It was his height and his large build with the robotic joints and an equally robotic mouth guard. It also had some other features that seemed to mirror its owner's dressing, which included very large, almost belled open legs that ended in normal sized feet like a pair of far-too-baggy pants. The arms ended in ringed protrusions and the fingers were bumpy as if to represent rings. Its neck looked like it was assembled from a different body and fit into a space just above the chest with an upward arc symbolizing that split. The mouth guard completely covered the mouth from the chin up to the space between the eyes on its noseless face.

"Run DMC" Starski replied. "What about you? Do you have a Stand?"

"But of course I do" the man replied. He leaned back and clapped his hands, which summoned a writhing, living darkness to appear behind him. "I struggled, at first, to name this Stand. It represents an unlimited amount of total freedom, an escape form the world of mortals to the realm of the gods high above. It is a timeless symbol of power that all humans can compare to in shame. Rending claws and biting teeth, a living void of inescapable doom. Then, suddenly, I had it! A name that can resonate with the same terror that my Stand conveys!"

The golden haired man started walking forward, into the light, but the same form of darkness stayed behind him like a walking, moving shadow. Only this shadow was not his own. It had huge, terrible wings blocking the rest of his crew from view. It's body was more slim and lean that his own, but it was posed in such a way that the size didn't matter more than the shape. With its palms facing forward and arms extended down, it bared its long and terrible claws at the end of each finger. Its head was round and normal, but almost utterly black. It had two narrow, angry eyes and a wide bony growth that reached from it chin around to the back of its head. Along the line where a mouth would be, a very jagged second ring went in a cross and intersected the vertical growth at the back of the head.

"I am Dio Brando" Dio announced. "I am the leader of the Frozen Nights from out of town. I come here to claim this place as my new headquarters. My Stand's name is...**System of a Down**." At the cue of its name, System of a Down leaned back and let out a hideous roar with its unevenly jagged mouth that went almost halfway around its own head. The piercing howl of 'WRAAAAAAAIIIIIII!!!!!' paralyzed everyone who heard it, including Starski and Run DMC. "You...should probably just run."

"I won't" Starski said. His Stand took the front stage with a boxing pose aimed at Dio. "This is my turf, and no blondy-faggot is telling me otherwise!" The two faced off, an a one-sided battle soon commenced!


	12. Dio's Freedom, SoaD

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

It's Dio versus Starski! Upstart punk versus veteran gangster! With an explosive and manic start, Dio went sprinting forward and stayed low to the ground. He came upon Starski and his Stand quickly and made the first brash move. First he jumped up and kicked, with his own leg, and planted it firmly on Starski's collar bone. Starski slowly lost his balance and began falling backwards. Then, Dio planted his other leg down and crouched down onto Starski's chest to kick off with both legs in a powerful gesture of strength. Starski went flying backwards from the kick and Dio safely flipped back and landed on his feet, drawing his head back up and looking down his nose at his pitiful opponent with a mighty hand on his hip.

"FUCK HIM UP!" the Lovebugs bellowed. They all roared and grabbed their sidearms with pipes and other metal objects in hand. They made a rush for Dio but got intercepted by automatic gun fire. Dio's Frozen Nights were armed like a military force, wielding silenced P-90 guns and 9mm pistols to appose the irregular Uzi and sawed-off shotgun the thugs carried.

"Hmph" Dio laughed carelessly, "what a joke." Dio took off his skull jacket to lessen the restrictions a jacket had on one's movement, and also to intimidate Starski with his obscene muscular structure under his tight underarmor body suit. It had no sleeves and ended abruptly at his neck, otherwise it seemed that it would stretch to cover his face. He walked over and found a shovel, then tossed it like a spear into the little gang hovel that the lovebugs hid in. "Use that wisely and dig yourselves some graves!"

"My men ain't gonna die against you fags" Starski said. He was up again and mad.

"You still want to fight?" Dio said in a warning voice. "You obviously weren't the top of your class. Against someone like me, with absolute power and skill, how can you win?"

"I just know that I'm not losing!" Starski said. "Besides, a person's strength and a person's skill always falls to a Stand! My Stand, Run DMC has a power that can't be countered or defeated at all! Why don't _you_ give up and save yourself the trouble of having to go home crying to your mama?" Mentioning Dio's mother, a touchy subject if there ever was one, made the nefarious man cease smiling and frown sternly.

"I'll show you just what futility is" Dio said. He silently invoked his Stand, a hard one to see in the pitch black, and had it lurch over to his right where the metal skeleton of steel that was to be a building was. System of a Down (hereafter referred to as SoaD for short) opened its huge mouth and took a huge chomp out of the metal. After a few moments of chewing, Dio brought his hands up receptively. "The ability of my Stand is not just resounding terror, it allows me access to an infinite arsenal!" SoaD took its last chomp and opened its mouth. The red metal of the girder had been alchemically refashioned into sharp knives that fell out into Dio's hands. He caught multiple thin blades between each finger and held them up with a very stern, unmoving face. Starski quickly realized how limited his options were. Either die or dodge. Dio threw back his arms and lurched his head forward to prepare, then whipped his head back and let the knives fly from his huge arms as the whipped forward again. A barrage of knives came at Starski, and at a speed that truly made him lose hope.

"It's useless to live anymore!" Dio roared. "Just DIE!" Run DMC activated and suddenly vanished, taking Starski with him. The knives were lodged into the metal sheets and other red girders. "Hmm?" Dio looked around, then up and saw the fleeting shadow of Starski as it retreated into the ruins. Dio gave chase on the ground, well aware of the useless strategy Starski was employing.

"Whatever this guy throws at me" Starski said "I'll just throw back with twice the force!" Starski pulled out a gun and stopped in his run. He crouched low on one of the highest pillars of deconstruction around and surveyed Dio below. Dio jumped and turned around to check occasionally, then continued running on the spot. It seemed that his Stand was gone now, and he was alone. "A Stand with an ability like that is powerful. He must not be able to go too far away from it or keep it out for real long. That's good. I can definitely get a plan together now." Unexpectedly, as Starski watched, he saw Dio slow down and come to a stop. He stood elegantly and slowly turned his head to glare straight into Starski's soul. He was found out, and a large chunk of metal disappeared from a nearby wheelbarrow.

"Shit!" Starski shouted. He continued to retreat, sprinting on Stand-powered heels, and hid behind a pillar. He heard and saw many knives deflect off and sink into pure metal. "This guy's nuts! I need to get to my special ground and use Run DMC on his ass!"

"Well well" Dio said, nearby. Starski turned around and saw, behind the pillar in the scaffolds of the very same skeletal tower he stood on, Dio was there. Dio was standing and staring him down with eyes colder than the moon. Dio and his Stand that twisted out from thin air and roared silently with a twitching head, were right there. "You're 'special place?' Where might that be?" Starski was too terrified and totally bewildered as to how Dio got up there to answer him.

* * *

"How'd you find me?" Starski asked. Dio pointed to his head and manifested his Stand's head just above his own. Above the gnarling, jagged mouth of the phantasmal Stand, around the crown of its black head, vertical slits opened up to narrow eyes, four at each half of the head for eight total looking in different directions at once.

"SoaD can see everything" Dio said "and relay that information to me. It's also so dark-skinned that it can hide in my shadow without anyone seeing it. Even if we fought now in broad daylight you wouldn't have seen it!" Starski was taken aback and tried to run away to regroup. A large blast of air came from his feet and he sprang away, moving through the twisted maze of metal. "Useless" Dio chided. He started pursuing using SoaD's supernatural power to empower his legs and dash on effortlessly.

"I just have to lose him for a bit!" Starski told himself.

"Huhuhahahaha!!!" Dio laughed as he gained with each kick. "It's useless! SoaD can see in more than just one spectrum! It can sense heat, see in total darkness, and sense ultraviolet to infrared waves with its eyes!"

"Well that's perfect" Starski mumbled to himself in dejection. Against a literally all-seeing foe, how could he seriously escape unless he openly activated and attacked with his Stand's power? It seemed that was his only option, so he kicked himself into the air and turned his feet towards Dio. Dio anticipated some kind of Stand ability, he stopped moving in mid jump and let himself fall down a few levels, then caught himself on a girder and grabbed it with his Stand's hand, clawing in shallow grooves where the claws sliced the metal. Run DMC fired jet-propulsion blasts from the bottom of its legs. Now that Dio could see those legs again from a different angle, they did resemble two turbines with a rotating and static node in the middle.

"Is that all to his power?" Dio noted. "What a pathetic display." Dio jumped ahead, seeing Starski did not get shot forward by his attack, and aimed SoaD's sword-like claws for the metal girders all around.

"Did I get him?" Starski asked himself. "No, I can't wonder than now. I just have to get going. If I can get there before he finds me, then I'll have a chance. Right now, I don't think I can stand up to their guy!" So Starski rushed off, not bothering to look behind him and see the victoriously smirking Dio standing at the edge of the metal web. In one step, Starski's life was thrown out of whack and he began falling on the girder he saw was sliced down to the bolts. He tried to jump back up using his Stand to power his jump, but Dio floated on through the air and stepped on his hand to jump up and hang from an untouched metal rafter.

"Too bad" Dio said, putting a free hand in his pocket. Starski looked desperately up as he fell and saw a shimmer come from Dio's pocket. Another knife, this one silver and much more precious looking than the normal iron and steel knives that were thrown about. "I have no pity for useless fools. Just die already." Dio threw the knife down and let it get right in Starski's eye before he worked up the nerve to use his Stand to dodge. He didn't grab it or try to bat it away, he was completely intent on running. Di watched the straight path that Starski took and noted where he went with a grin. "Useless, useless, useless..."

* * *

Starski landed with his back skidding across the ground and got scratched up pretty badly. He was dug into a trench with Run DMC hovering over him protectively while he regained his bearings and feeling in his legs. The brick and mortar of the unfinished building that separated the place he had been with where he was now was partially broken from his last-second escape plan. He knew, above all else, that Dio would be in fast pursuit somewhere, so he hurried and got up to his feet.

"I've got to make it to the stash!" Starski told himself. The muffled sounds of gunfire could be heard across the junky block, and he knew what they were from. Dio's gang was still fighting the Lovebugs, and it sounded like they were winning. "I owe it to my people to get back there and help out, dammit! Run DMC can only do so much with its jet-speed blasts and air heating abilities...Shit, what can't that guy's Stand do anyway?"

_It is a general rule that if something has articulately built wings, it can or once had the evolutionary ability to fly. Humans have always been fascinated over the ability of flight that birds have and that bats have and that even some fish seem to possess. No human can actually rise up and fly with nothing. It is as impossible as it is unrealistic...still, that doesn't count much for Stands._

So thought Dio, who hovered high, high above the ruins of the unbuilt projects. SoaD clutched him with its three-toed claw feet around the waist and held under his arms to keep him up while it flapped its huge wings to keep him in the same spot of the sky as long as possible. "I have a flight limit of about twelve minutes" Dio told himself. "Mr. Starski, for how long can you stand to push the air around? I imagine not long at all, correct? Perhaps some friendly reminders are needed so you can gain some better perspective." He held out his hands and received several knives that he promptly hurled down at the totally unassuming Starski. However, in a bizarre twist, SoaD's telescopic view observed Starski snapping his body around and blasting the knives away with Run DMC's turbine leg. Then he glared up into the skyline of ruined buildings, searching for his attacker.

"Oh?" Dio grunted. "He's already learned. He used his Stand's eyes to watch his back, knowing how I would attack. Unfortunately, he still doesn't know where the hell to look..." SoaD, at Dio's mental order, made a few more rapid flaps to readjust its demonic body and started a dive downward. Dio let his body glide through the air on the wings of his devilish Stand while Starski continued to dumbly scan his surroundings. In the final moments of Dio's dive, Starski found him, but was too confused and overwhelmed with fear to react reflexively. Instead, he just stood shock-still and let Dio flap his terrible, stitched wings at him to stop from slamming into the ground. He hovered a foot over head and glared down with victorious eyes and crossed arms. His body held itself at an angle in the air while SoaD landed on its talons withDio in its clawed arms.

"Useless" Dio whispered. SoaD opened its mouth and roared its paralyzing 'WRAAAAAAAIIIIIII!!!!!'. Starski was dead standing, it seemed.


	13. Dio's Triumph, Soad 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Dio closed in for the dreadful kill like a hawk with his huge talons and wing-appendage claws extended for the ripping motions on his target. Likewise, Starski stood like a petrified mouse on the ground, unable to act up until the moment of his death. Unconsciously, he activated Run DMC and shot a blast of air immediately forward, dodging the larger brunt of Dio's attack by a hair and getting knocked head over heel into a pile of wood.

_Nice reaction _Dio thought. At the moment of Starski's dodge, Dio's godly reactions kicked in and he flapped his wings to stop. Between the blast of air Run DMC fired and the blast SoaD delivered with its wings, there was enough swirling force to throw Dio to the ground. The twisting air caught him and reeled him awkwardly to his feet. That gave him an idea and a fierce smile as well.

"I'm alive?" Starski groaned. He sat up, then jumped back to his feet and stared down the evil Dio. "I'm alive" he repeated with more conscious purpose. "Shit, I'm alive!" On the note of Run DMC, let's examine the Stand itself:

All of it was a negative version of its owner, annoyingly off-white and mechanical as most Stands appear. Its two forearms and lower legs can transform into huge cannons resembling the engines or turbines of an airplane. On its flat back were six intake 'gills' that sucked up the air from behind. It's ability, for lack of better explanation, is to displace air at a rapid rate. The air taken in from behind can be moved through any of the four turbines as huge blasts of air or as concentrated, slow releases of super-heated air. Run DMC is an imperfect Stand, however, partly due to the unambitious attitude of its owner towards the paranormal. Starski only utilizes the abilities that interest him, namely the super-heated cutting and welding properties of his 'air-welding'. It cannot fly, but if it could, it could easily propel Starski to near jet-speeds if he were properly equipped.

Now Dio was standing, arms crossed and hair hanging in strands over his pretty face of carnage-loving doom, and glared down Starski. Starski returned the gaze, showing obvious fear as he shivered but a stubborn sense of pride along with it. He was scared, but he was going to fight.

"Oh?" Dio grunted, turning his head away and glaring through his periphery vision. "Is that valiance in your eyes? Or perhaps the fear has robbed you of sense, and you've gone mad? Either way, it is utterly futile. This ground is mine! The sooner you surrender to me, the sooner this pointless fight will end!"

"The Lovebugs are a family" Starski growled, summoning his Stand "and this place is our home. This is where we met, where we've fought, where some of us have grown up, wondering how in the hell all these people can just judge us instantly for living where there aren't any damn buildings! This is our home! Our fucking home! I ain't letting an upstart faggot like you take away our god-damn home!" Run DMC powered up and created a huge, swirling vortex of debris behind Starski. It was the intake, powering up his turbines and preparing for some wicked winds to blow.

Dio's face became stone and serious for a moment, watching this frightening display of psychic fortitude, then he smiled a crooked and vile smile across his face. "Useless..." he uttered. With a roar, Starski summoned the winds of Run DMC's arms to come together and form a moving, twisting vorpal nether area where all the loose debris stayed floating. Then, with a throwing-down motion, Starski threw the swirling mass at Dio. Dio activated SoaD, with its gaping maw of jagged points and meter-long claws, and looked up through his lashes at the coming destruction. "Useless..." Dio groaned. SoaD started roaring wildly and swung its arms back and froth in rending motions. The debris was torn into slices, all the metals and woods and chunks of concrete, and flew right past Dio.

SoaD continued with its fearsome call of '**WRAAAAAAAAAIIIIII!!!!'** as it slashed.

"You're a bit lucky, I guess" Dio said above the chaos. Starski looked up and saw Dio continuing to remain unharmed even by his best efforts. "The effective range of my Stand is less than one meter right now. We're virtually attached at the hip, if you will. That's what allows me to fly, the immediate proximity we retain at all times, otherwise it would fly up and disappear without me close by. In that sense, my temporary immobility has you at an advantage. Right now, SoaD can either slash or create knives, not both. Enjoy this while you can, Starski..." A sudden chill ran through Starski and he felt an odd disconnection with the world. The eyes of terror that Dio possessed had stolen away his attention and trapped him within an expanding world of doom. "You'll run out of projectiles soon..."

_Fuck! He's right! _Starski thought loudly. _I need to stall and get something better suited to fighting this guy with! I need to think. This guy can fly at will, I can only make big and long jumps, and on some odd occasions where I'm pumped up I can hover around pretty fast. Other than that, I can't fucking fight this guy! At close range he's too strong. At long range he's too unpredictable! Shit! How do I fight this guy!?_While the two major powers were fighting off at some other end of the block, the Lovebugs were suffering their first casualty. One reckless, rising star of thuggery got cocky and decided to lob a grenade without cooking it. That grenade came back behind his cover thanks to the lightning-quick wit of Dio's Frozen Nights and killed him. Other than that, the worst that had been suffered was shell-shock from having grenades go off so close and some nasty cuts from pipe-bombs that exploded too close. The thugs were still standing and ready to exchange fire, but ammunition for both sides was running low.

* * *

"What we got?" a Lovebug thug asked. Another crawled over to a bag, keeping himself out of view of the window just in case, and looked inside it.

"We got, like, four more mags" the man responded. The apparent commanding officer, a light-brown skinned man with a blond military buzz-cut scowled like it was the soldier's fault.

"You're shittin' me" he growled. "We got nothing!?"

"Next to nothing" the youngest one corrected.

"Shut up, Jamie" the leader said childishly. "We gotta have faith now, boys. The boss'll take care of that freak, that's for sure, but how long it'll take and how many more we'll lose I don't know."

"We can't lose anymore, yo!" another exclaimed. "Those guys still got a full troop back there!"

"They're uphill a little bit" another pointed out. "And that trench is between them and us."

"They got the better guns" another said. Morale was overall abysmal, and all prayers rested with the big man Starski. How he was doing could only be guessed and no one dared to make that venture. Fire broke out once more from the Frozen Nights, and the Lovebugs retaliated with blind sprays of their own. Behind the tires and overturned impenetrable metal objects, the Nights were silent and lead each other with silent signs and almost telepathic precision.

In truth, far away form the ruined block of deconstruction, Rosalisa sat watching from atop another complex with telescopic, digital binoculars. They read the individuals on the 'battlefield' based on movement and body temperatures. It could track and trace bullet fire and point in its direction with digital arrows. The nasty truth is that, on an imperceivable level of sight, long paper-thin strands stretched from each Frozen Night soldier back to Rosalisa's spine.

As she watched and silently mouthed orders, she wrote quickly in her book.

"The pieces are too straight-forward" she noted. "They have too few moves for this engagement to be interesting. My pieces have all the good moves and I am making them. Their pieces are not properly guided. No one bothered to give them interesting moves at all...Truly, an unintelligent player is behind those slow pawns." A loud explosion was heard that resonated throughout the nearby city. It woke up many people and the vibrations that echoed through the ground set off a few car alarms. "Oh?" Rosalisa grunted curiously. She moved her binocular vision elsewhere and held her troops on standby. When she saw the tornado of destruction far away, she stopped writing. The opening attack made by Starski could be seen from all over. For a moment, Rosalisa felt compelled to fell fear for Dio, but that moment passed very fast. Very soon after that avalanche from mid-air started, the entire block echoed with the soul piercing screech of 'WRAAAAAAAAAIIIIII!!!!'

* * *

"Do you see?" Dio asked, the avalanche now long over and Starski's resources expended. "It is useless! USELESS! Your efforts are in total vain!" Starski's lip quivered in fear and distress, but his body moved with determination. He ran around to a few standing port-a-john's and tried to reach one, but Dio's knife cut him off. It missed, but came close enough to cause Starski a large amount of mental duress. Dio started marching forward in a slouch. His large arms hung limply down and swung past his knees. He kept his head only part-way up so Starski could only see the white-hot glow from under his hanging hair. SoaD marched in Dio's shadow, extending that shadow with its utter blackness and making a horrid face with its fangs.

"I ain't over yet" Starski whispered. He summoned Run DMC again and ad it pose with one arm straight out, the other drawn back behind its back, and its torso turned appropriately. It was a challenging kung-fu kind of pose that Starski elaborated upon by making circles with his hands and taking long steps to the side. Dio stopped his zombie march and rose his body up while keeping his head down and pointed at Starski. His face was engulfed by shadows as he watched Starski continued to pose stupidly and make obnoxious noises as he did. Starski made a bold move towards another outhouse, had Run DMC latch it with its unseen foot, and grabbed a dully automatic handgun from the hidden arsenal behind his back.

"Hoo-uaaaaaahhhh!!!" Starski shouted. Dio raised and eyebrow and started leaning back at the waist. Starski cocked the gun and whipped it out with extreme fluidity. "BITCH!" he taunted. Dio's eyes flew open with aggression when he saw the gun. SoaD's claws extended and prepared for a last-second counter attack just before the bullets started flying. Starski fired, his strong wrist dampening the recoil, and Dio dodged. He leaped around with his legs and spun his whole body in the air for the extra meters it gained him. His movements were oddly corpse-like, Starski would observe. When the gun emptied and SoaD came forward with claws out to rip and rend, Starski had Run DMC hand him two more small automatics and continued spraying. No bullets were hitting, but it kept Dio away.

_This is getting frustrating_ Dio told himself. _It's time to end this stupid fight. Sorry, you would have made an excellent messenger or errand boy, but now that's you've aggravated me, you must die!_ Once the guns were empty, SoaD's wings expanded and flapped quickly. Dio had nearly teleported at the speed he traveled over the ground to get right into Starski's face. Once there, Dio grabbed Starski's face and shoved his body into the plastic outhouse. With that stunning move, Dio had his opponent off-guard and boxed in. Now he was free to make fists of his hands and start punching freely and fastly. At first, the punches were light on Starski's toughened body, but the manic speed and power of Dio started building up, and soon Starski was dreading for his life as Dio laughed and chanted at him.

"HAHAHA! It's useless! Useless, useless, useless useless USELSSS!!!!" Each punch was getting harder and stronger as Dio continued, and Starski was running our of consciousness.

_Run DMC! _Starski desperately summoned. The poltergeist warrior took Starski's place and blocked the physical punches of Dio for a half-second. It was enough time for Starski to find a gun, aim into Dio's eye and fire. After that, things went black for him...

* * *

Dawn. The beginning of a new day. With word that Dio was out on the streets of the nearest major city, a terror that could not be easily ignored, Jojo set out via taxi cab to the inner part of the city. Unsupervised children were out playing and older men were out roaming without work. This was indeed the ghetto that Dio so loved to control. His all-encompassing charisma that he saw better used at corrupting the easily swayed would be put to its fullest use here if anywhere.

"Where would he go?" Jojo thought out loud. A group of children came laughing up to him with their hands innocently tucked behind their backs.

"Hey mister!" a young boy said. "Mister, are you a rich guy?" Jojo blinked in confusion. He had never been approached like this, but he was wearing some rather fancy garb for inner-city travel. He even had a tie and button-down shirt with his khaki slacks and new tennis shoes.

"You look really strong" a little girl noted politely.

"You're really tall!" another kid said. "You're taller than my dad!"

"He's tall enough to play basketball" another kid said. Jojo was getting embarrassed and blushed with a smile. "Hey mister, do you play basketball?"

"No, I don't" Jojo said.

"You should!" the kid exclaimed. A heavy footstep caught the kids and Jojo's attention for a second.

"Hey kids" a rough, grown man's voice said, "I need to talk to this guy. Ya'll scatter."

"Okay Starski" the kids agreed. They went back to playing on the sidewalk and in the yards of their houses while the tall and dark-skinned man walked straight up to Jojo like an old friend. He even placed a hand on his shoulder and offered to shake the hand connected to that shoulder. Jojo confusedly extended it and took the handshake, which led into a brotherly embrace.

"Dio sent me" Starski whispered into Jojo's ear during the embrace. Jojo withheld his look of dismay and surprise, but his look of anger came through clearly. "I'll be short, okay? I don't mean you any kind of trouble. I'm just working out a deal with that guy. See, he had me and my gang on the ropes, right? And I got kids in that gang, man. Kids I love like they were my own kids, okay?"

"He made you a lackey?" Jojo summarized. Starski took offense to the term, but a man his own height and with a much thicker build he didn't want to verbalize his thoughts. "Dio is a villain, don't forget that. Nothing honorable comes from working with him, not even to protect the lives of the innocent. It would be better to oppose him than to let him get his way."

"Have you ever done that?" Starski asked.

"I'm alive right now" Jojo answered. "And yes, every time I meet him, I oppose his wishes with as much willpower as I have. Fighting him only lets him know he's getting his way."

"Listen" Starski began, getting back on topic, "I have an important message for you. Dio said for you to just go to school and chill, alright? These ain't my words, but he thinks that 'a neophyte in the ways of a Stand shouldn't get mixed up in the affairs of a godly man like' him. If you have a Stand, then please be my guest and stomp his ass out! But if you really don't, and you can't beat him, please don't try. I think he just wants you to stay away from him."

After a silence form the giant Joestar, he finally made a verbalized thought. "Where is Dio right now?"

_That's the problem with white kids_ Starski told himself. _They don't listen to good, true and tried advice from a gangster. No one does!_ Dio's Stand army has now increased by one: Starski the leader of the Lovebugs, which has now been absorbed by the invading force Dio's Frozen Nights. Is he an adversary to Jojo and his friends, or is he just a helpful man standing in the shadow of the super-charismatic Dio? We can only hope for the best...


	14. Talk Calmly, Young Gentlemen

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Despite the obvious warnings of the decaying structures around him and the continuous dragging of Starski behind him, Johnathan Joestar was adamant on confronting Dio this time. He had too long avoided a proper explanation for his deplorable actions, and regardless of the territory, Jojo was going to have it out with him, even a little. He was guided from behind by the nervous but upright Starski through the broken, unbuilt skeletal projects. There was a sense of urgency in the way Jojo walked, his back straight and his fists clenched, like he was seriously walking in to a potentially deadly situation.

"You ain't leaving, eh?" Starski said.

"No" Jojo replied.

"You can't let this go?" Starski asked, "not even for one day?"

"Dio won't wait one day" Jojo argued. "Now that he's this close to me, he'll want to take every opportunity to rile me. Besides, someone is threatening his life and he may not even know it. I may as well tell him so he can be prepared."

"Why do you wanna help him!?" Starski said. He suddenly started marching ahead and stopped Jojo. "I don't get you, man! Why, if this guy is the damn devil, do you want to give him a heads up!?"

"Anyone who knows Dio" Jojo very plainly began "knows how hard it is to keep him dead. It simply can't be done. If someone is making a move on his life it's because they _can_ kill him...and anyone else they want. As a honorable person, I can't do anything that would bring harm to the innocent. If Dio knows someone is out to kill him then he will most likely stop them himself." Jojo walked past Starski and left him to think with his mouth open.

_Shit_ Starski thought. _Is this guy really that bad? I mean, this Johnny guy looks tough, even if he don't got a Stand. He could definitely take someone down if he need to. If he's this scared...shit!_ Starski retrieved his sunglasses and jogged ahead to keep pace with the quickly moving Jojo. _Maybe I should be scared too..._

"Hey boss" a guard said into the largest shack on the grounds. "Boss?"

"He's sleeping" Rosalisa said from the corner. The guard looked into the window and Rosalisa popped into view from the shadows. The guard was forced to his back out of shock. "I said, Dio is sleeping. What is it?"

"Uh..." the guard began, getting back up and brushing himself down, "someone's here. I think...it may be Joestar."

"I will meet him" Rosalisa said. She started moving for the door and had a guard inside open it for her. For once she was dressed normally, aside from her hair which was still up in a bun shaped like a rose. She wore a billowy light-blue sleeveless blouse that was popular and a short skirt with knee-high socks and heels. It was a very Latin style, and she carried herself down the stairs to encounter the distant Jojo with a swing in her hips. The lesser-educated grunts from the Lovebugs dared to whistle and gawk at her as she walked.

"Now those are legs!" they heckled. "Show us some ass!" Rosalisa, not one to emote very much, just waved her hand and the indecent noise stopped. The men who dared to jeer at her started palming their mouths and heaved breaths through their noses. Jojo kept his straight, serious business face up until he was within a few feet of Rosalisa. He was just far away that the guards became cautious, but not protective.

"Johnathan" Rosalisa greeted, "how is college? Is it living up to your expectations?"

"It is" Jojo answered shortly. "Where is Dio?"

"Sleeping" Rosalisa answered. "He was up all night claiming and patrolling this territory. Why do you need to see him?"

"I believe" Jojo began "that someone may be attempting a move to kill him soon. Speedwagon and I encountered a Stand user last night, a boy named Sue and the Stand Cash that absorbs water from its victims until they are completely dry. He manipulated the electrical circuiting of the campus lighting to spell out 'Dio Must Die', a message from his 'superiors'. There may be a gang or Stand user who is aware of Dio's presence that wants him gone."

Rosalisa took a few moments to herself, not moving or making any expressions of the disgust and anger inside her. "Alright" she softly spoke, "I'll warn him when he waked up. Threats like this are usually coupled with a soon-thereafter ultimatum. Are you sure that's all you know?"

"That's it" Jojo said.

"Thank you then" Rosalisa said. She spun around and started walking back with a hand on her hip. "Good bye." As she passed the invisibly gagged thugs their mouths became unbound and they gasped through them like dying fish.

"Wait!" Jojo shouted. "I need to ask you a question!" Rosalisa paid him no mind. She just kept marching to the steps that led into her temporary base. "I don't care why you're here, but what happened at the mall? What happened with MUSE?"

"MUSE?" repeated the voice of darkness. The door to the shed creaked open and a wave of fresh terror washed through the gathered guards. Starski refused to step back, as he had looked this death in the face just last night and ended up madder at that face than ever because of it. Jojo glared up the small steps to see the owner of that voice. A man of god-like figure, slouched down out of exhaustion wearing a blanket around his waist. "Jojo, don't tell me...you want to fight her with me...?"

Jojo just silently glared his intentions. Dio, a lifelong cancer of Jojo's, offered his rival a seat inside...

* * *

The shack was decorated, if that word can be used, sparsely. There was a sofa and a chair, both torn and dirt covered. There was a television, but the chances it worked in such a grim place were low. The floor was bare, exposing the finished hardwood floors below. The walls were peeling all over with most of the chipped studs visible. The ceiling was the beginning of what was to be another roof, but the scrapping of the city project cut the apartment down to only a few rooms that Starski used to stay in as the leader. Now each finished room belonged to Dio. Jojo sat patiently on the chair, hands neatly folded in his lap, while Starski sat sprawled out on the couch.

"You're a guard" Jojo pointed out to his lazy observer. "Shouldn't you be guarding me better?"

"You're a business student" Starski said lazily. "Should you really be walking around a gang hangout in the middle of the day?"

"Um...yeah" Jojo replied. "Good point, I guess."

"Tell me something" Starski said. "You seem like a decent kid. How'd you get mixed up with that...Dio?"

"We were kids" Jojo explained. "I can't really go into gross detail right now, because Dio's nearby, but when we were kids I sort of messed with him and he messed with me. Since then we've had a mutual understanding of 'pure hatred' and we vowed soon after that to kill each other no matter what..."

"Shit" Starski cursed. "What'd he do, kill your dad?"

"My father had already died by then" Jojo admitted.

"I'm sorry man" Starski apologized. "My dad died from a drive-by, so I get you."

"My father had cancer" Jojo said.

"Eh.." Starski grunted. _Shit, this kid's making me nervous. I don't know why, but I really want that freak to break this up..._ At that moment, a door into the room from the adjoining hall opened and Dio stood in it. He had dressed himself sloppily with some worn jeans and a sweater-jacket he wore as a cape that clung lovingly to his shoulders. He switched on the lights, which flickered briefly before fizzling out entirely, and made his way across the room. Starski shot up out of the couch and gave it over to Dio. Dio, however, moved past the couch to a rocking chair in the corner, covered in dust, and pulled it over to sit as close to Johnathan as possible.

"I know you don't believe me" Dio began, "but it's good to see you again, Jojo." With an invisible flap of SoaD's wing, the dust cleared from the chair and kicked up all over the room. Starski ran over to the door and activated his own Stand to pump all of the dust outside. A huge cloud of gray covered the stoop of the building and the door slammed shut.

"I didn't tell you this before" Starski said, panting, "but I'm seriously allergic to airborne dust! I got a condition, I can't clear my nose like normal people can! I can only sneeze when I stare at the sun for too long, not when shit's all up in my sinuses!"

"How uninteresting" Dio said. He smiled and sat down, resting one leg atop the other and laying his still heavy head on the back of his fist. "So tell me, Jojo, what do you know about MUSE so far?"

"Not a lot" Jojo admitted.

"What of your Stand?" Dio asked. "May I see it?" Jojo decided, after a moment of uncertainty, to do what he could. He used all his mental strength and conjured the extremely feint echo around his hand. Dio could plainly see the silhouette of some huge and powerful looking hand. Above that, near Johnathan's face, he could see the white glowing eyes under an angled helmet. Jojo couldn't maintain it after that and let out a long breath. "Well, at least you have your Ripple power as of now."

"Yeah" Jojo said, staring at his hand.

"Have you chosen a name yet?" Dio asked, repositioning himself to cross his arms and lean back in his chair. "You know, it's bad luck to name a baby before it's born."

"It's called The World" Jojo said. "I didn't name it, Zeppeli did."

"How has he been?" Dio asked. Jojo glowered up from his hand into Dio's eyes and he smiled.

"Take it easy" Dio said, waving his hands. "You know I won't kill you like this, although I very well could. Tell me, why exactly are you here?"

"I already told Rosalisa why" Jojo explained. "Why not ask her?"

"Getting information out of her tends to be troublesome" Dio said. "I suspect because she is so good at getting information out of others. Just tell me one thing, do you like the territory that I've chosen for my new base? I think it compliments me much better than my Underworld theme." Jojo stomped his foot onto the floor and broke it. Dio's expression changed from amused to plain and neutral.

"What happened?" Jojo sternly asked. Dio continued to stare blankly. Jojo tensed his fist with his natural breathing and visible streaks of his Ripple crackled around his flesh. "Speedwagon told me that MUSE attacked. What happened?"

After a moment of looking down at Jojo's fist, Dio stood up and sighed. "You've been working too hard, Johnathan" Dio said, taking a hand to Jojo's shoulder. "You need to relax more." With a quick and mostly unheard growl, SoaD was summoned for a single, solid punch into Jojo's gut. The force of the Stand curled him over and knocked him out swiftly. Dio's hand held onto Jojo's shoulder and he tossed him onto the couch. Starski witnessed the whole event and could only act by backing into the wall for protection.

"He goes to Presley University" Dio declared. "Make sure he gets there safely."

"Sure" Starski replied. Dio walked out of the room and back down the hall to the apartment with the stolen king-sized bed in the main room. It used to be Starski's room, but now he just had to watch Dio leave and sigh at what he had lost. "Question, how am I gonna get this guy's giant ass back to college safely?" Jojo lay completely unconscious on the old couch, unaware of what events transpired within his deep spirit. That blow, Dio's single cheap shot, had unwittingly sped up the process of Jojo's Stand growth nearly a hundred fold! What would have taken months to develop should now only take days. Such is the power of a Stand, and the luck of a Joestar!


	15. The Seeds of Hate

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

As Jojo unconsciously drifted through his barren, desert wasteland of an inner mind he heard some things. Alternative rock music as played by the owning bands at a concert. Many people were happily cheering and many others were whimsically drifting to and fro between the crowd. It was a party, a big open party that Jojo was thankfully a part of. That was when he started remembering.

Remembering just why Dio was in his life.

After the stern punch Jonathan had delivered to defend an innocent man from the murderous Dio, security stepped in and attempted to separate the boys.

"I'm sorry" Jonathan said, although he was being handled with great care. "I made the first move. I acted violently against him." Dio glared over past the four arms that tried to bind him down at Jonathan.

"Are you sure?" the guards asked. "That man said this young man attacked him." Jonathan looked over and saw, first, the blunt that was in that man's pained mouth and the slouching snarl he was giving the boys.

"I didn't see anything" Jonathan admitted. Security released Dio and gave Jonathan a quick scolding before walking off. Dio rolled his shoulders back into a comfortable position and looked around for something on his person. After not finding it the first few times, he began slowly panicking. "This?" Jonathan asked, showing the stone mask Dio wore that was knocked from his grip after Jonathan had punched him. Dio made a look, a somewhat serious but still wanting look, and moved with Jonathan to a higher spot away from the crowd. Eventually Dio got his mask back and put it on for safe keeping.

"I like it" Jonathan said. Dio still fumed over his embarrassment, but nodded to acknowledge young Jojo. "Is it German? Romanian? It looks like something from a Gaelic or Gothic-inspired setting."

"Classically" Dio said "I'm not sure. My mother found it on an archaeological expedition...before she died."

"Oh" Jojo said sadly. The empathy from his voice was from honesty, rather than simulation. Dio could tell immediately and made an assumption.

"When did your mother die?" Dio brashly asked.

"When I was an infant" Jonathan said plainly "and now my father's in the hospital. But, hopefully, he will recover."

"Is your father a good man?" Dio asked, emphasizing 'good man'. Jojo nodded simply. "He's a good father, right?"

"Yes he is" Jonathan explained.

"How so?" Dio asked.

"Because he cares about me" Jonathan explained. "He always does what he can to make sure my future is as bright as his present, full of success and honesty, by training me to be a modern gentleman and businessman."

"He grooms you?" Dio asked. "Is it forced, do you think? Wouldn't you rather do something else?"

"Of course I would" Jonathan said very pleasantly. "My father knows me. He wants my education as a businessman to be a fall-back, not a succession of lineage. What I'd really like to do, honestly, is historical researching. Archeology."

"Really?" Dio asked. "That's...interesting." He had nothing to say. The memories of his mother were to haunting to bring up anything to a stranger.

"I'm sorry" Jonathan apologized, sensing the discomfort in Dio's voice. "What about your father? Is he a nice man?"

"I wouldn't care to know" Dio said. "He died a while ago from some sickness, or drunkenness, after forcing my mother out of her work to take care of him and worked her to death." The subtle hatred in his voice made Jonathan's brow furrow. "I would say no, Jonathan, he is not a good man. But really, who's to say?"

"He doesn't sound good" Jonathan said, honestly agreeing based on the true words Dio spoke.

"How do we know?" Dio asked. "To most of these pompous morons we're just children. We have no real say in the line we hide our morals behind and how far or near to someone we know it should be. I say, because my father never worked and insisted on people pitying him until he killed my mother unassumingly, he was a worthless person. He'd have been better off dying or getting aborted."

"Then you wouldn't be alive" Jonathan pointed out. Dio snapped his head and stealthily sneered at his intellectual rival.

"True" Dio admitted "but neither would he. I'd prefer that over life with him, trust me."

"Seems a bit backwards" Jonathan pointed out. "In truth, humans are naturally greedy and self-centered, but some are more and less so than others. They are the problem people, so to speak. Your father may have been too self-involved and never cared much for anyone else, but it could have been worse. He could have scoffed off your very existence and allowed you and your mother to die very early on or he could have left you both. If your mother was the main breadwinner, you would have lost your things to him in a settlement. By sticking around he at least let you enjoy your mother while she was around." Dio was very softly growling at how right Jonathan happened to be.

"So was he a good man?" Dio asked calmly.

"Not by my standards" Jonathan said "and certainly not by yours. Society has its own standards that entail a balance between friendly banter and stern fathership. My father is often stern in my learning and tutoring but very lenient when we both had the time. He was my friend and my father. Your father was only ever strict and selfish, and from that came you."

"And what am I?" Dio asked judgefully.

"I'm not sure" Jonathan said. "I'm not you. What are you?"

"Cynical" Dio said. "Some people have called me excessively negative, wholly unpleasant, evil, a living rot of all things humane; I could go on if you wish."

"Well I don't believe that" Jonathan said. "No one is ever evil all throughout. All people, inherently, are good, or we'd never move past any conflict to work together." Dio had to snarl again. Jonathan was right. Annoyingly, he was really right and Dio had to admit that to himself...

* * *

Minutes passed. Eventually an hour or so passed. The concert started to wane away, the bands were winding down and the crowd was beginning to depart. A majority, about 90%, stayed for the final act in the hopes it would be something truly amazing. It was a Joestar benefit, after all, and most people knew that no expense would ever be spared for the sheer entertainment of the workers and common people under the megalithic shadow that company cast. Dio had removed his mask to let his face breath and suddenly began a new conversation with his insightful new friend to get him off balance.

"What makes a man good on his own?" Dio asked. "What values and strengths can be attributed to being truly 'good'?"

"Hard work" Jonathan said "and conformity. While there are some people who chose not to conform to the ruling caste of people, they are still good because they are seen in a positive light by the others within their culture."

"You're too quick to shoot me down" Dio said. "You may not have all the answers, you know." Jonathan looked at Dio and silently asked him to continued with an apologetic nod. "I believe that strength comes from trial, and the harder one works for his life the better a person he becomes."

"Are you a good person?" Jonathan asked. "If people call you evil, then..."

"They can fuck themselves" Dio brashly said "those people. I'm not evil, I'm just slightly amoral. I don't care so much for what other people seem to see as sacred and important."

"Like what?" Jonathan asked.

"Well" Dio said in a reminiscent voice, "one day I was feeling in quite high spirits and to celebrate a I robbed a liquor store with a few accomplices. Later, when we were caught due to my partner's negligence in discretion, I shoved the blame on them and confessed my total innocence as an unwilling participant in their crime. The police believed me, after I tossed the word 'molestation' around a few times, and the smug pieces of scum were sent to jail. I walked. Now, commiting criminals to their proper place, is that evil?"

"Framing and lying are" Jonathan said "but the end doesn't always justify the means."

"Of course it does" Dio said. "As long as you win you can't be called evil. Evil doesn't win."

"Because good stops it" Jonathan said. "The loser isn't evil, its just that evil always loses."

"Is that so?" Dio said. "What about the Bible and the people in it. Some of them were just and good, but in the end they didn't win. They just went deeper and deeper into their own personal hells as crafted by their all-loving God to test their faith. I ask, what kind of absolute deity needs to test his people's faith?"

"A paranoid one" Jonathan said. "Those stories were crafted, I admit, mostly to keep major crimes called 'sins' at bay by presenting the 'real world accounts' of men and women who lived and died through the consequences. You can see in the modern world how those lessons fall apart."

"Really?" Dio asked.

"Would you kill a man in jail" Jonathan said "if he murdered someone close to you?"

"Of course I would" Dio said.

"Then you would be brought down to his level as a murderer and sentenced to take his place on death row." Jonathan said. Dio opened his eyes sharply at Jonathan. "You see, society and culture tend to dictate the definitions of right and wrong. No one in the world can truly ever be right about their methods or wrong about another's methods, because no one anywhere is completely the same."

"What?" Dio asked in disbelief.

"The only way something can be wrong" Jonathan said "is if something just like it exists so a comparison can be made. I can't rightly say you're a bad person, although you don't sound nice or mindful of cultural morals, because I haven't lived like you and I have a different personality."

"But then what makes a man good?" Dio asked, now eager to hear Jonathan's answer.

"Whatever he wants" Jonathan said. "Good is just a word. What's good for you may be unwanted and bad for me." Jonathan's even-mindedness was truly pissing Dio off to the point where he had to sink to his hands and feet and crawl away. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"Stay away form me, boy-scout" Dio growled. "You're making me sick. You think, because you're rich, you can try and negotiate your way past hate and bias!? You're wrong! You just sound like your bullshitting me and I don't like it! I don't want to hear this from a kid like you."

"Hey, you're a kid too" Jonathan pointed out. At this point Speedwagon walked into scene, having gotten lost somewhere along the way with a warm soda in hand for his friend. "You can't deject my ideas just because I have them. Try them out. Just try thinking positively for a bit, regardless of the life you've led."

"Stop that!" Dio demanded. "I'll tell you this, Jonathan Joestar, I don't like that kind of blind and baseless optimism in an unfair world. There is suffering and neglect because people with _your _views and _your _standing making all the decisions as to how society is run!" Jonathan was staring seriously at his downbeat and generally menacing looking acquaintance. Dio put his stone mask back on and started away. "Beware, Jonathan Joestar. Consider me a reaper of you happiness, a reminder of all the grime that exists around the world! I will drag you down into my hell, my hopeless hell, if I have to die doing it! Remember that, Jojo!!!" Dio started running away from the concert he didn't pay for and escaped into the orange twilight.

"Jeez Jojo" Speedwagon said with his mouth agape, "what'd you do to that guy?" Jojo, for the life of him, didn't quite know. What he did know is that the seriousness in his voice, the adamant tone in his threat, was real. In only a few years, Jojo would find out just how real the threat of Dio was to him...

* * *

Now back to the present. The ever optimistic Jojo awoke with a painful shivering in his gut that calmed down after he started breathing ins his signature way.

"I may be sick" he told himself. "Breathing with the ripple is calming me down, though." Jojo looked up and all around. He was in his room at college, for some odd reason, and in the clothes he wore when he confronted Dio earlier that day. "He knocked me out" Jojo said "instead of just talking. He's...the same as ever." Suddenly the phone rang and stole away Jojo's attention. He got up and answered it, a private phone connected to his room, expecting his truancy officers to demand where he went and where he was on the night of the blackout...again.

"Hello, Jojo" Zeppeli said on the other end. "How are you?"

"Mr. Zeppeli!" Jojo said in astonishment. "Why-why are you calling here? Wait, before that-"

"Jojo" Zeppeli continued "I know you have a lot on your mine, but bare with me for a moment. You are aware of your Stand, correct?"

"Yes" Jojo answered.

"Can you use it?" Zeppeli asked.

"No" Jojo said. "Mr. Zeppeli, why has my life Ripple not totally submissed my Stand power?"

"It is unecessary" Zeppeli said, "but at least it subsided the pain fits that come with developing a Stand from its natural dormancy."

"What?" Jojo asked.

"I have some new theories and notes" Zeppeli said "that may interest you regarding your Stand, but first I need a favor."

"What?" Jojo asked.

"There may be a budding Stand user in your school" Zeppeli said to Jojo's shock. "I can tell you the name, but not the actual power. I haven't discovered it yet, I have only heard rumors from Speedwagon. I would appreciate it if you could check him out calmly and try to get him to use his power."

"...Wait, why?" Jojo asked, finally regaining his intellect. "Why is this more important that the other things that are going on!?"

"You mean MUSE?" Zeppeli asked. Jojo audibly stopped breathing with a gasp and the tingling pain in his gut returned. "I know her goal, and this young man may be apart of it. Please, you must approach him calmly and with caution as soon as possible. The sooner we can get to him, the sooner we can prevent either Dio or MUSE from progressing with their mysterious agendas..." Jojo was overcome with a sense of urgent fear. Hearing about MUSE and her secretive plan was enough to make him anxiously shake with anger, but Dio as well? What could this new users Stand power be???


	16. Bon Jovi 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The next day, after Jojo received his first Stand-related mission, the campus was utterly abuzz with the strange news of bizarre happenings. Johnathan initially ignored them, but then Erina ran up to him with a frightened look.

"Jo!" she shouted to Jonathan.

"Erina?" Jonathan said, confused about her desperate appearance.

"Look at this!" she shouted, shoving a newspaper into Jonathan's face. He pulled it away to get a look at it and saw, to his horror, a rather photogenic candid shot of his nemesis in the midst of a late-night robbery. "This guy gave a terrorist threat-letter to the police demanding satisfaction from a 'Jojo and The World'. Isn't your nickname Jojo!?" Jojo could indeed see why she would be so worried, and suddenly all the curious and troubled stares he had been getting over the day were justified.

"It's not an uncommon nickname" Jojo gracefully defended. "And what's that bit about 'The World' anyway? Some people are just nuts."

"Oh, phew" Erina sighed. "Thank god. I thought for a second he really was talking about you."

"Still, that's serious" Jojo noted. Erina nodded in agreement. "What else did the letter say?"

"Not much" Erina said. "He just explained the exact amount of money he stole as well as the valuables and that it would be useless for people to try and catch him." Jojo nodded in understanding and kept a cool, level head.

_Dammit Dio!_ Jojo shouted internally. _Going this far to get my attention...what do you want? My Stand is still inactive!_

"Mr. Joestar" a random faculty member called into the busy hall. Jonathan handed Erina the paper and walked over with her following behind him possessively. "There you are. Someone is looking for you."

"Whom?" Jonathan kindly asked.

"A Mr. Speedwagon" the teacher said.

"Where is he?" Jonathan asked. Outside, under the gilded arches of the magnificent building, REO Speedwagon leaned against the wall with a bowler hat brimmed over his eyes. He watched very carefully as people passed him, and made a practice of smiling and winking at the pretty girls.

"For a business school" REO said to himself "there sure are a lot of hot chicks walking around."

"REO" Jojo called. Speedwagon turned and saw his friend walking through the crowd and under the arch of the main building. "How are you. What's up?"

"You got the mission, right?" REO asked. "From Zeppeli?"

"I did" Jojo admitted. "I've been investigating, but so far I can't find anyone suspicious."

"I'm not surprised" REO said. "Whoever this person is, they'll want to hide from you no matter what, especially after what happened to them before."

"What?" Jojo asked in shock. "Wait, what about before? Do you know who it is?"

"Somewhat" REO said, pointing a finger. "This person has had an encounter with one of our enemies in the past..."

"Dio" Jojo said, positive of his guess.

"Yup" REO said. "He's developed a sort of Stand-user phobia, so if he knows either of us is a Stand user we won't be able to get too close to him."

"I'm not even a Stand user yet" Jonathan said. "Even if he can see mine, I can't use it or activate it. Maybe I should approach him. Where is he?"

"That's a good plan" REO admitted "but without me we can't find him." REO activated his Stand only as a single chain clinking around on his chest. It pointed him away from the college across the way. Judging by the general direction, Jojo made an educated assumption.

"He's in the off-site dorms" Jojo said. "Possibly in a hotel in town. There are only a few actual hotels in that direction, but there's also a private dormitory village with nearly a thousand students."

"He's bound to be somewhere over there" REO said. "When are your classes over so we can leave?"

"Give me about an hour" Jojo said. "I still need to finish my homework. Then we'll meet back here and head out."

"Right here?" REO asked, deactivating his Stand. "What am I supposed to do until you get back? Sleaze around and flirt?"

"You can go to the lounge or the library" Jojo offered. "Those are public."

"Hot chicks don't hang at the library!" REO argued.

"Shouldn't you be at classes anyway?" Jojo rebutted. REO just blinked without an answer and looked around him for a sing.

"The library is...where again?" REO asked. Jojo sighed and started leading him. Unknown to the boys and intruder had eavesdropped their entire conversation, then vanished into the shadows from whence they came.

* * *

The time finally came. After expertly finishing his studies in only an hour, Jojo returned to the arch where REO waited in his casual clothes. They met silently and started walking off the campus. The sun was beginning to set already, a bad omen.

"How far away is the dorm?" REO asked.

"About thirty minutes if we walk" Jojo said. "If we get a ride and there's no traffic we can get there in a few minutes."

"Hey boys" Erina called. Jojo and REO turned to see her running up to them with her hair down and waving. "You two need a ride? I was just about to head out to my dorm off campus." Jojo and REO looked at each other with disbelief. They were almost completely convinced that this wasn't just a random coincidence, but with the opportunity in hand they couldn't simply refuse.

"Uh, sure" Jojo agreed. "Thank you Erina." Erina let the guys follow her to her car, ignoring the on-edge tension they both seemed to put forth. They obviously had somewhere to go, or someone to meet.

"So Robert" Erina started at REO, "how long have you been Jo's friend?"

"Jo?" REO repeated with confusion. "You mean Jojo? We've been friends since we were kids."

"That's awesome!" Erina exclaimed. "So, do you know any other famous people, Jojo, or are you a more reclusive celebrity?"

"I'm a celebrity?" Jojo asked. "I'm sure I've met other people before, but REO is my best friend."

"Hey Jojo" REO whispered. "Is she hot for you?" Jojo gave REO a stiff elbow to shut him up. All three boarded into Erina's luxurious convertible car and she sped off from the grounds. It was a dark and tense silence in the back with the boys. Erina had to distract herself with more mellow rock on the radio so she wouldn't be tempted to pry any further.

_What could they have been talking about earlier?_ Erina quietly wondered. _Maybe Jojo is connected to that guy in the paper after all? Maybe I should tail them and see what they're up to once we get there..._ In only minutes with minimal traffic Erina pulled up to the parking garage entrance and let Jojo and REO out before her.

"Will you guys get a ride back?" Erina kindly asked.

"We'll be fine" Jojo answered. "Thanks for the ride, Erina."

"No problem, Jojo" she said, happy to call him by his proper nickname. She drove into the garage and left sight soon after.

"She's hot for you, man" REO pointed out.

"Let's find this Stand user fast" Jojo ordered. "If we wait until night there's a chance Dio will show up."

"Right" REO agreed. He activated his Stand and the chain link on his chest started pulling him strongly in one direction. "Well, he's here, that's for sure. Let's go." REO led and Jojo readily followed. Even though his Stand wasn't fully active, Jojo was prepared to fight with what he did have: his Life Ripple. He started concentrating his breathing, and unconscious effort to exude the energetic force now amplified to static-producing levels. His fists started faintly glowing with a golden light. Even REO, in his proximity, felt the warmth of the sun's energy coming from Jojo.

_Even without a Stand_ REO thought _Jojo is powerful enough to take down a user. He proved that against that guy Sue and his Stand Cash. It was scary, even I almost lost hope, but Jojo trounced him with the ripple. I need to have some confidence in Jojo, that's all. He can undoubtedly handle this._

"Hang on" REO said. He stopped and brought his chain into his hands. Jojo looked over and saw the Stand chain much more clearly than only days before. It was still just the vague outline of and image with dull, blurry colors, but it was there. REO swung it up and hooked it onto some telephone wires. He closed his eyes and stood perfectly still as the information conducted into him. "I got it. I know where he is. He was talking on the phone a few minutes ago."

"What's his name?" Jojo asked.

"Gerald Reach" REO answered. "I'm not sure about his Stand, but I do know he has one, so be careful."

"Right" Jojo said. He looked down at his arm and the faint image of his Stand's arm beside it. It was much more detailed now. He could see the sinews of his Stand's apparently muscular arm and the tight armor it seemed to wear, but the colors and the exact lines were still out of his vision. He still hadn't cultivated his Stand into existence, but it was beating down the door from within Jojo's body to come to life.

* * *

In a dim-lit dorm room in the villa-filled village of the illustrious and elite college students, a young man with long hair wearing an uncleaned undershirt and boxers sat in the corner of a completely bare room. He was messing around with a piece of rubber, stretching it and letting it snap back into place, when something started beeping in another room.

"What's that?" he shouted with a start. He exited the room, which was in fact a closet, and came into an expertly furnished Victorian-era imitation room. Books were lined on all the walls, a plasma television replaced what would have otherwise been a fireplace, velvet couches and reclining chairs with an authentic wooden desk with a brilliant finish that held student-issued books. "Who's there...?" the young man whispered to himself. He grabbed a remote from the desk and clicked a button that turned the channel to a sort of live video feed from outside his dorm hall. He saw two men in casual clothing, one with a hat in brown and the other wearing blue, and immediately made an assumption.

"Oh, it's over" he manically whispered. "It's over. They found me, man, they found me! They're gonna get me. Gonna eat me. I'm dead! I have to do something, have to fight, have to protect myself somehow!" The young man, Gerald Reach, summoned his Stand from the unknown shadows and looked at it in the mirror.

"You can protect me" he asked, "right? Bon Jovi?" His Stand, which he crazily referred to as a separate being, was a mirror of his own slender and underfed frame. It had long arms and legs with a slumping back to equate to its user's height. All over it's ocean-blue body were long, straight yellow lines with slim, green lines inside them. Its fingers were long, especially the pointer fingers which were longer than any of the other fingers on either hand. Its face was covered from the nose up with a skull-cap style helmet. Two glass-like oval panes covered its eyes. Its mouth had long lines of natural coloring that extended from the ends of its lips to the ears and then hit the back of the helmet to form a maze-like pattern of yellow that covered its skull.

This was Bon Jovi, a Stand with a mysterious power. It's user, Gerald Reach, de-summoned the Stand and turned to his door with an evil glare. "That's right" he said, now in a totally different pitch of murder and loathing. "You come on up! You try and touch us, we'll fuck you up! FUCK YOU UP! GYAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!"

"Shut the fuck up in there!" a neighboring resident shouted through the walls. "You crazy moron!" Gerald snapped back to his frightened, submissive personality and sank to the floor.

"I'm sorry" he whispered. "I'm so sorry...they're gonna kill me...!"


	17. Bon Jovi 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"I got a bad feeling, Jojo" REO admitted as they stared down the door. "We don't know what kind of Stand this guy has or what it can do. We could be walking into a damn trap for all we know!"

"Just stay calm" Jojo said "and I'm sure he'll be reasonable with us. We're just here to perform some simple reconnaissance. It's not an interrogation or some kind of forced recruitment drive, we just need to see who he's playing for at the moment."

"Right" REO said. "But if we can get him on our side-"

"We won't try" Jojo said. "Don't even use your Stand around him, and feign total ignorance of Stands while talking. If he knows he may get uncomfortable and we won't get tot talk to him."

"So what should we do?" REO asked. Jojo took his hand into his inner-breast pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. It had a blank drivers license and a few small bills of cash inside, as well as an expended Visa gift card and a few wasted lottery tickets.

"We'll just tell him" Jojo started "that we're returning something of his." Jojo moved through the door into the large dormitory building with REO standing blankly on the stoop.

"Where'd you learn that?" REO asked, finally walking forward. "From Dio?" The two young men were still utterly ignorant to their actual situation. They were still being watched and monitored by Gerald Reach, who stayed safely in his room. He prepared for his company by getting dressed in designer jeans with heavy fading and a broad-stripped polo shirt of off-white and dark yellow. He even wore his fancy, broken in Italian import loafers with black dress socks. Most students called him weird and 'severely unstylish' because of the way he presented himself as a sort of gentleman vagabond, but he didn't care. At least the voices in his head liked the way he dressed.

"They won't eat me" he told himself, hurrying to the bathroom. "No, they can't eat me! I'm too stringy! I'll get all caught in their teeth, then I'll just ooze out and reform like in the cartoons! Yeah! That's what'll happen!" He turned on the water in the faucet and ran his long, greasy hair under it until it was all soaked and limp again. Then he whipped it around from side to side and got his shirt wet in the process. "They won't eat me!" he shouted now, tying his hair up with a band. "No one will! Not if they can't reach me! Bon Jovi!" At his command his Stand was summoned, presenting its lanky self alongside its user. "Let's...greet our guests!" His demeanor had once again shifted from panicked to hostile, and now he made his way in a lazy slouch to the door of his elegant room.

"What kind of guys is he?" Jojo asked. "Does he have any habits that you know of?"

"No" REO said. "I just know his name and room number right now. Also, he seems really skittish on the phone. He was ordering delivery when I intercepted his name and he kept pleading for the food to be left outside of his door. He wouldn't open the door for anything, he just left the money in front of the door and waited for someone to come by. He's pretty paranoid."

"Well let's not provoke him" Jojo said. "If he gets too out of control I can calm him down with my Ripple. But, if he gets hostile, it's up to you. Only a Stand can fight a Stand." REO nodded to the plan his friend had set. If all went well, he wouldn't have to reveal just how poor his Stand was in a straight-up battle to his strong friend.

"His room" REO said "should be at the end of the hall. Number 206."

"206?" Jojo repeated. "That would mean the second floor, wouldn't it? This is the first floor."

"I think these dorms are different" REO said. "Did you notice how it's built on a slope? Well, maybe the first floor is really the floor under this one, the one build downhill from here Then this floor, as the ground floor, would have to be the second. See?" REO pointed to a set of stairs leading down to an adjoining hallway. Jojo turned to acknowledge them and they both fell gracelessly into Reach's trap. He saw them turn away from his door and had his Stand peek out the door with its long pointer fingers extended. It took its left finger to the inside of its right forearm and made a sliding motion that moved a small button along the surface of its arm. Its ability was activated, and it backed into the rom again as REO and Jojo continued walking towards the door.

After a few minutes of walking down a hall where the opposite end was visible, they sopped and looked back. They couldn't see the door they came in anymore, it was too far away.

"This building" Jojo remarked "isn't nearly this long."

"Are you kidding?" REO said in fright. "There were only three doors on either side of the door we cam in on. How many have we passed already?" Jojo looked back and squinted in the direction of the entrance.

"Two" Jojo said.

"That's bullshit!" REO shouted. "There's no way haven't gotten there yet!"

"Unless" Jojo said "this is his Stand trying to trick us!"

"Good point" REO said. "Let me test something." REO summoned his Stand, which Gerald saw through his camera monitors, and threw it. On the camera, REO and Jojo were only a few steps away from the door itself. Trapt clinked against the wall immediately, but in REO's eyes it seemed impossible. "We should be here by now! Trapt only traveled a few feet!"

"That seals it!" Jojo exclaimed. "We're caught in Gerald Reach's Stand ability already!" Reach smiled dastardly and got up, ready to fight with murderous light shining in his eyes.

"Bastards" he lowed. "I'm gonna eat you...I'mma cook you up and chop you up and eat you myself!!!"

* * *

REO returned his Stand and let it oil around his arm for protection. The chain moved on its own, it seemed, like a snake wrapping itself tighter and tighter around its user's arm.

"Shit" REO cursed. "How long have we been stuck like this?"

"Maybe too long" Jojo said. "I feel dreadfully misplaced all of a sudden. This must be some kind of illusion Stand, making our minds think we've been moving when we really haven't been going anywhere at all."

"That must be it" REO said. "If that's the case, all I need is a good shot and I can figure out how this all works." Jojo ignored his friend's self-confident banter and pulled out a small pin form his pocket. "Eh? What's that for, Jojo?"

"If it's just an illusion" Jojo said "I should be able to cancel it just like a bad dream. Just a quick poke and I should be fine." Jojo pricked himself on the finger, forcing a painful wince, and looked up. The hall was still endlessly long, and the door was still miles behind. Jojo looked down with disappointment at his finger and dropped the pin.

"It's a Stand, Jojo" REO reminded. "Only a Stand can really fight a Stand." That's when the actual fighting started. Out of nowhere, from far down the endless hall, a figure started making its way to the boys. It crawled quickly on all fours until it was close enough, then it seemed to vanish, like some twisted fantastic illusion from a horror film.

"Huhuhuhu..." laughed some evil nearby voice. Jojo and REO glanced ahead at some shadowy figure far, far away at the other end of the hall. At their destination was their target of goodwill, Gerald Reach, and behind them was his Stand, Bon Jovi. "You're here to kill me, aren't you?"

"What?" Jojo exclaimed. Bon Jovi spun Jojo around and threw him against the wall. Jojo could only see the silhouette of his assailant, but REO could see all of it. He made a punch with his chain-wrapped arm and missed entirely, the Stand nearly teleporting away and back to its owner. "What the hell!?"

"Looks like he has long reach with it" REO noted.

"Reach?" Jojo said.

"A Stand" REO explained "can only travel so far away from its user without losing its power. His Stand must be able to travel pretty far in its illusion because he's so damn far away."

_Wait a second_ Jojo said to himself, _that doesn't make sense. REO's Stand hit the wall easily. It didn't even travel too far. It must be an illusion, and he's only a few feet away from us. In which case..._ Jojo looked around for something to enact his plan and saw his finger, still dripping with blood.

"Are you Gerald Reach?" REO shouted.

"I am" Gerald said very plainly and quietly, as if he was right next to him. "Know this, I won't let you bastards eat me! Get 'em Bon Jovi!" The Stand erupted forth with amazing speed and started poking at REO. It was normal speed, possibly a bit faster than normal, but even REO couldn't dodge it forever. He eventually got poked on the shoulder. A slider appeared on the arm of the finger that poked him. "I want you to know what my power is before I kill you. Bon Jovi can stretch anything it touches dimensionally. For example, this hallway you're in, it isn't really as long as you think, but it is that long to you. Anyone else who comes out and sees you walking will just assume you're walking in place or walking very slowly."

"Really?" REO said. "What's to stop me from just breaking this illusion bullshit and punching you square in the-"

"This is no illusion" Reach said. "In fact, this hallway is truly elongated to about a mile length, if not more. I used my maximum power to make sure you two couldn't reach me, but it isn't endless. If you had kept the pace for about another hour you may have reached my room!" Bon Jovi moved one of its long fingers to the slider on its arm, which rested above the other slider, and started slowly sliding it forward. REO felt a very strange sensation in his arm, right where he was poked by the Stand, and looked over. His arm was stretching out painlessly more and more until the slider reached its limit and he felt his hand against the wall next to Gerald's body.

"What!?" REO shouted in surprise. "What the hell?"

* * *

"Bon Jovi can selectively" Gerald continued "manipulate the dimensional length of anything he touches. The space in the hallway has been distorted drastically for you and I, and now your arm has been stretched beyond dimension! It's all quite simple, if you understand theoretical physics."

"I'm a damn businessman" REO declared. "I don't give a flying mother-fuck about theoretical anything!"

"Pity" Gerald lowed. He retrieved a switchblade knife from his pocket and poked at REO's arm. Whatever means by which his Stand power was working, the pain he inflicted on REO's arm was real. He made a tiny slice down his arm, which felt like a prick to REO, but the scratch started stretching as soon as the knife left his skin. REO gritted his teeth and growled in pain. "Bon Jovi can even stretch pain. If either of you could make it up here you could stop me, as I personally hate pain and would cease my attack but-"

"HEAAAAAHH!" Jojo roared. He had taken flight while Gerald was distracted and had his arm thrown back. He was rushing in, trying to defeat the Stand power, to deliver a punch.

"Bon Jovi!" Gerald desperately cried. The Stand moved quickly, but Jojo stepped aside. He didn't want an up-front engagement after all. In his drawn back hand was the pin he brought along, which he threw as his arm whipped forward. The pin didn't travel far at all. There was such force that its target, who was only a few feet away, could only watch and wince as the pin lodges itself entirely into his nose. Jojo screeched to a stop, right in front of Gerald and backed up a step to pose. He raised on hand up and made a pistol motion with his fingers.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Jojo asked rhetorically. REO's arm was returned to normal and the cut that was made was reduced to the tiny prick it should have been.

"OOOOOOWWWWWW!!!" Gerald cried. "OUCH! OUCH! You bastard! Why would you do that?"

"After all that gloating?" Jojo said. "Why wouldn't I? Your power only works on certain things, namely whatever your Stand touches. However, I don't remember you ever touching my pin or me. That's why REO and I could move through the hallway, even though it was stretched, and not go under the effects of your Stand until you revealed yourself."

"What's more" REO began, now noticing that he was indeed only a few feet away from the pained user, "we weren't even too far away from you! Bastard, that's what you get for attacking us." REO went in to make a punch but Jojo stopped him. He was breathing calmly, rhythmically, to the beat of the Ripple. He reached down and grabbed Gerald's nose. Gerald winced and shivered in pain.

"You're going to eat me" Gerald shivered. "Just like those other ones, you want to eat me! Please, I'm sorry, I didn't know who I was messing with! I apologize! Just don't eat me!" His nose was warm now, warm not with pain but with peace. He looked up at Jojo who was waving the pin in front of him with a smile. "What...?" Gerald said.

"Eat you?" REO said in confusion. "Dude, what kind of fucked-up people tried to eat you?"

"Those girls" Gerald shivered, "led by MUSE." Jojo became utterly shocked at that name. The fact that this young man had encountered them and then got led into some kind of psychosis only urged Jojo to act as follows.

"You have to tell us" Jojo said, leaning down "everything you know about MUSE."

"Why?" Gerald asked.

"Because we're going to kill her" Jojo answered. The magnificence of those words and the way in which Jojo spoke them resounded within the frightened Gerald. His face, Jojo's face, seemed like something heaven-sent. His mountains of muscle were re-insuring of the faith that built within Gerald's chest. Even his skin radiated comforting warmth. This man, a mighty Joestar, was able to quell the heated panic in his enemy's heart and turn him into an ally!


	18. Gerald's Narritive

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

After the battle, Jojo cleared himself and REO by stating their true intentions. They were sent to observe Gerald as a Stand user and try to determine if he was sided with someone in this bizarre affair. Obviously, by the quivering and utter fear in his eyes at the mere mention of the name, he was not sided with MUSE. All three had retired into Gerald's room so he could reveal everything he knew at his own calm pace. Still, despite the reserved atmosphere and the warm presence of Jojo and REO, Gerald kept his Stand active at his side while he sat with his legs up in his coziest chair.

"So please" Jojo began, "tell us whatever you can about MUSE."

"I'll try" Gerald said. "Let me see...I believe it all started a few days ago..."

* * *

(And for the sake of interest, Gerald will narrate the story himself.)

I was on my way home from classes when I was approached by a strange man who had one messed up eye. It was very glassy and glazed over with a thick, disgusting film. He also had very long sideburns, more hair in them than on his close-shaved head. He may have been blind in that eye. He looked straight at me and stopped me in the street.

"Can you keep a secret" he asked me suddenly. I could not respond, as I was too taken aback by the strangeness of the situation. He leaned in anyway, his thick sideburns brushing very gently at my own hair. "I died twelve hours ago!" With that said he walked hurriedly away. It was all so random, so very curious that I could not bring myself to walk anymore until a few minutes had passed by. Once I regained control of my legs I started running away. It was barely a half-hour run for me, the star of my high-school track team, but the uncertainty and fear it brought made my run seem so much longer. Eventually I came upon the threshold of the greater city area blocks near my apartments, the eateries and small convenience stores that the locals favored so much.

That's when she appeared. She had a nebulous cloud of billowing hair, sharp eyes of cooling charisma, and smile that could kill on sight, and more frightening than anything else she had a Stand. I could not see it well, but I knew that it stood behind her, watching me. Eying me down like a skinned rabbit on a meat hook, waiting for me to be tossed into some stew or chopped up into bullion!

Eyes of evil that I had never felt before made my heart melt in a molten pool within my chest. I was overcome with fear for my life, so I summoned my Stand unconsciously.

"Bon Jovi" I said silently, "Extend the sidewalk between us so she can't get close." Bon Jovi was about to adhere when its hand, reaching down, was caught by the long arm of her Stand. It was a slithering, sticky tentacle that bound my Stand and my own arm in place. I could feel my skin constricting and my muscles compressing under the invisible weight, adding to my great terror.

"My" she said in such a tone that reflected the hunger I saw earlier, "what an interesting young man you are. Tell me, do you have a girlfriend?" Seeing no other way out but to comply with this strange woman's interrogation, I answered.

"No" I said honestly, staying as composed on the public streets as I could. "I don't have one."

"Well then" she continued "would you like one? Perhaps me?" I knew this was trap and I held my tongue. Answering in any way would result in some torturous death, I knew that. I saw no real way out, so I bit my lip to prevent anything from slipping out. Then she started walking towards me with her long, strong legs in short dignified steps. I started struggling to form a plan, and seeing a lamp-post to my side, I sacrificed my own secretive nature for a quick escape.

I moved as much as I could and grabbed the pole with the intention of climbing it. She started running at me now, her face unchanging in its probing expression, but with her head tilted down it made her look infinitely more aggressive and evil. Bon Jovi touched the pole and quickly made it extend dimensionally very high up.

She looked up, losing her concentration for a moment, and Bon Jovi broke free of her grip to quickly climb back up to join me and aid me by staying attached to the pole with me. It was frightened but not unable to fight at all. The people passing by only saw me atop the pole, but Muse saw me far, far away. I could barely see her down there, and she began climbing after me with her own Stand. I knew, and silently cursed the fact, that the pole wasn't as long as she thought it was, and her Stand would reach me with is crawling, slithering tentacle hands very soon. He retrieved a fountain pen from my breast pocket and touched it with Bon Jovi.

"Leave me alone!" I said with my teeth clenched. I aimed the pen down and had it extend sharply at her face. She didn't move at all. Her face was changed form provocative and seductive to grave, almost angry. I was frozen with fear, and that fear overtook my fighting spirit. The pen stopped before piercing the flesh of her terrible face. A long, writhing tentacle reached up and grabbed my foot. With my concentration utterly broken, my dimensional extension wore off and I fell a few feet to the ground. She stood over me with a cloud of moving darkness behind her, all of it coming for me.

"A pathetic escape attempt" she said coldly. She planted one of her high-heeled shoes on my chest and started pressing. I could feel the small point of the shoe's elevated heel stabbing into my chest. It hurt so much I started to cry. "Honestly, are you the best I can find here? There must be others in this pathetic little city."

"What do you want!?" I demanded. She looked down at me from the side of her eye and kicked me away. I rolled off the curb and dangerously into the street. A truck was approaching. I had no fear of the truck, at least no more than I had for the witch that grinned playfully at my demise. I summoned up Bon Jovi on my instinct to survive and extended the road, slowing the truck down to a crawl. I then proceeded across the street in a brief hop and let the effects of Bon Jovi wear off slowly. The truck passed by, its driver obviously dazed and confused, and when it passed I saw that the evil woman was gone from sight.

* * *

I worriedly looked around for her, praying that she had simply left, when suddenly a slithering chill was sent down my spine. I rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a tentacle that was about to noose me, and regained myself. She was already across the street. Somehow, and I cannot fathom how, she was able to relocate herself even faster than I could. As I stumbled back in confusion she snared by around the chest and waist with her Stand and reeled me in with those venomous, hungry eyes.

"No" I quivered. "No!" I then shouted. I attempted to scurry away, using what little leg power she granted me, but my attempts were in vain in the end. She just snared my legs and arms with more tentacles and made it appear as if I was moving willingly towards her. I saw the tentacles extending from behind her, a humanoid figure standing like a statue with its right arm extending out as a writhing cloud of snake-like appendages. "What do you want with me...?" I whispered to her.

"Now that I have seen what I wanted" she said "I most certainly don't want you. You are far too cowardly for me to consider as an accomplice. Your power, however, could be quite useful to me. I would like for you to use it in my benefit, stay with me and trap anyone I want for me to kill until I have complete my mission."

"I refuse!" I declared. "It is not within me to take someone's life. I have never used my power in spite or harm, only in protection of myself. Besides that, it would take a full two semesters of theoretical dimensional physics to even understand how my powers work!"

"I don't care about any of that" she said, moving in for what I thought was the kill. Her eyes, deep and brooding, measured my mental strength and my soul through the long glance she stared me down with. It was utterly horrifying, like someone was trying to convict me of a crime I didn't commit, like I was staring at the face of a blind killer looking for blood! Then she said, "I just want you power..." It was then, I assume, that I had a breakdown. I summoned Bon Jovi and made a panicked attack on her. I had him punch and kick at her Stand behind until she let me go, then I ran away, extending the sidewalk and the alley I retreated through out of sheer desperation.

But none of that was enough. Some how she was able to keep up with me, using her Stand and its power to leap across the rooftops, ignoring the dimensional properties of my Stand by simply moving over the affected areas. I could see her dastardly shadow as I ran, her darker shade as the beauteous evil that hunted me and the lighter shade of an endless procession of tentacles coming from her Stand behind.

"I have to get home" I said in a rush. "I have to get home! I can defend myself there! Please legs, please Bon Jovi, get me home!" Still, as I ran down the final stretch of road that led to my dorm, I found that my prayers went unanswered. She came down gracefully across the street with her Stand echoing her movements. I could see it now. She stood low with her back arched out and her legs spread apart. Her Stand stood just like her, but the pose fitted it much more than her. It was a dark shade of some color I couldn't even understand, looking green and black at once, with elastic, shining skin. Its hands had lines stretching from the finger tip all the way up to its shoulder. More lines were around its forearms as well. Its chest had four thick, bone-like growths converging in a cross that met in a circle. Within that circle, embedded in its skin, was what looked like a startlingly bright red gem. The whole thing was covered in armor that I cannot easily describe. All I can say was that it was otherworldly, of wholly inhuman dimension. Something alien and cyclopean. Something...evil.

And then its face, its hideous face, had piercing, angry eyes and no nose. The armor it wore shaped itself in a dreadful Gorgon-esque shape with frozen stone tentacles of hair all over it. The exoskeletal skull extended down, covering up what would have been a nose, and ended in an arrow at its long and wide mouth of tiny, razor sharp teeth. It was like a shark's mouth, only within its partially-open grin I cold see a myriad of moving tentacles, tiny like worms. Her Stand, which has no name I know, obviously had some power regarding its many, many tentacles, but I could not discern what. I knew early on that there was no simplicity with someone this deeply evil. There was a catch, and the fear of not knowing what that power was kept me far away from her.

"That's right" she said, straightening herself out with a whip of her hair into its flowing, nebulous state. "Cower. Cower and cry, that's all you can do. My power can easily tear you apart, you know. I have the ability to destroy whatever I want, take whatever I want and make it my own! You, on the other hand, your power is only good for running away. It has no offense that I can see." That's when I remembered my pen. The attack had failed before, but this time it would work! She didn't know just what kind of offensive powers I had! I took out my pen, slowly and stealthily, and touched it with Bon Jovi. "You're nothing to me, but your power could be useful. I have made plenty of enemies that would want me dead, and fighting them all at once would not go well for me."

"Really?" I asked, edging her to continued while I tried to aim discretely. "Why would you want to fight so many people, anyway? What are you trying to accomplish!?"

"Nothing" she said. "I am simply trying to prove that there is no one in this world that is stronger than me. No one in this world is above me, I am the heavenly end of all humanities evolution. I am perfection!"

"Fascinating" I said, adapting my more evil voice to personify my offense. "So tell me, have you ever been stabbed there before?"

"What?" she said. I extended the pen at last, piercing her cheek and forcing her to bleed!

"There!" I shouted victoriously. I then proceeded to move the pen around, ripping at her face from within. That's when I lost my confidence. Her Stand caught the pen...and made part of it disappear. With just the swipe of its tentacled hand, my pen was severed near the tip. It then pried the tip from her cheek and I watched it reform, the disgusting tissues of muscle stringing back together like some colony of disgusting tentacles creatures! My pen dropped down, in its original length, and the ink bled out onto the ground with no tip to keep it in.

Then she started to laugh. It was soft at first, almost a giggle, then it built up until it was an uproarious holler of mad cackling. Her Stand let its mouth hang open as she laughed and the disgusting living tendrils oozed out and writhed around at its chin. In my blind fear I felt my mouth curl up and I started to laugh my own nervous chuckle as well.

"You hurt me!" she screamed happily. "Oh, thank you, you dirty young man! You have injured me briefly!!!" This madness made me uncertain of my own life, so I left to run away. She wasn't as helpless I as I had wanted her to be. Her Stand jumped from where she stood across the street and glared me down. I summoned mine and made some frantic punches, but her vile beast of a Stand merely reached around by Stand with its tentacles, reformed its hand and delivered a punch unlike any I had ever felt before. It was as if it had bitten off my skin with its hand, and I proceeded to bleed form the deeper parts of my punch-mark wound. Her Stand was not done challenging me yet, but I was certainly done attempting to fight. I reached my arm out and pointed it to the still madly laughing girl, looked up and down the street, then had Bon Jovi retreat to my side to touch my arm.

_**MMMRUUAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!**_ the fiendish Stand screamed. I rushed myself, extending my fist to land a powerful blow to her cheek far away and then punched hard into the side of a building beyond her. I retracted my arm and winced at the pain, but at least her Stand was gone. She continued laughing in short bursts while on the ground, clutching her face.

"You've done well" she said. "Once I regain control of my greater forces, I will take great pleasure in consuming you and your Stand!"

"What...?" I asked in fear. She stood up with her shoulders hunched and for the first time I got a glance at her chest. The shirt she wore, the same color as her devious Stand, read 'MUSE'. Her identity was revealed. Her threat echoed within my mind for all time after that, forcing me into my reclusive paranoia, and the she left. How she got away I cannot honestly tell you...but she was certainly gone from me at that moment...

And that is all I know about the fiend you call 'MUSE'...


	19. Johnathan Joestar, The World 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"_If you are serious about fighting her, please don't drag me into it! She's too strong for me! I'll die! But, I know someone who might be able to help you...another Stand user..."_

Thus were Gerald's parting words. He was still to frightened and cowardly to leave his room, let alone hunt and fight the terrible MUSE with Jojo and REO. The two boys made their walk back to the college campus proper and planned along the way based on the directions Gerald had given them.

"I wonder" REO said "if he's really telling the truth about this lead. He could just be lying out of fear or anger, you know."

"I doubt it" Jojo said. "I believe him. He was telling the truth about this other Stand user, but that's what worries me."

"Which part?" REO asked, bringing up the details of Gerald's parting wisdom. "The part about this guy being an escaped convict and alleged serial murderer or the part about him having an incredibly powerful Stand?"

"Both, I suppose" Jojo admitted. "My Stand is still inactive, and training it may take weeks to see any real progress." _But still_ Jojo thought _I find it a bit odd that I can see so much of it now. It's almost visible to me..._

"Well good luck with that" REO said. "Maybe if you get stuck in training you can call up Mr. Zeppeli and have him help you."

"I'd really rather not resort to that" Jojo said nervously. "Zeppeli is a good teacher but he is just as impatient as you or I. He trained me to compete in the spelling bee when I was a child by forcing me to spell words as fast as I could until I passed out."

"Damn" REO said. "Well, I've got a bus to catch. We'll meet up at the regular place tomorrow, alright?"

"Got it" Jojo said, acknowledging the 'regular place' as the archway at the entrance to his campus. "Good night, Speedwagon."

"Night Jojo" REO replied as he walked away. Jojo smiled and started making his way through the night air to his dormitory. He was at the far side of campus, a long way to walk, but curfew wasn't active yet and the lights were still on. People were busily rushing from place to place to beat out the 10:00 deadline or face the punishments, Jojo included. He decided to make a break through the park of shrubs and trees as a shortcut so he wouldn't have to worry about the random men and women stopping him on his way back home.

"I hope Gerald can recover" Jojo worried "from his shocking experience. Encountering someone...something like that sounds horrible. I worry for myself as well. Will I be able to stand against such a fearsome opponent without an equal power at my hands?"

"No" answered a voice in the trees. "Trust me, my friend, there will not be a fight if your Stand does not develop soon." Jojo whipped his head around, catching only the momentary glimpses of movement in the trees branches. As he looked about, following the low and evil chuckle form tree to tree, he noticed just how alone he was in his own territory where this strange new enemy had surfaced.

"Who's there?" Jojo demanded. The shadowy figure dropped down from the trees and landed behind Jojo with a cold, hissing wind. Jojo already knew who it was. He turned around in anger to face his nemesis, standing with hands on his hips and smiling at Jojo.

"Calm down Johnathan" Dio said. "I'm not here to kill you...tonight."

"Dio" Jojo growled. He started breathing his Ripple breath and clenched a fist of crackling energy.

"Good" Dio said. "Use that anger, that power. It was my drive of survival, my hatred of weakness and defeat that developed my Stand so quickly. Jojo, you must utilize your own feelings to propel your Stand's evolution, even if those feelings are of hatred and loathing! Use them on me!"

"Shut up, Dio!" Jojo ordered. Dio snarled with a smirk and lowered his head into the shadows. "I'm nothing like you. Just leave me alone."

"Do you know" Dio began "her motives at all? Her methods? The end she wants to justify her means by? Jojo, you have no idea just what MUSE is planning."

"And you do?" Jojo asked skeptically. Dio made no moves. He just stood smiling at Jojo with the shadows covering most of his form. "What? What is she planning?"

"Genocide" Dio plainly said. Jojo's eyes shot open with shock but stayed furrowed out of anger. Now that he knew, his purpose seemed only more righteous. He became continuously more sure of himself and more solid in his faith to stop MUSE's terror...all thanks to Dio.

* * *

"MUSE plans" Dio explained "to use her powers to gather an army of Stand users and kill all normal humans, as well as all opposing Stand users. Trust me now, Jojo, when I tell you that she does indeed have the power to do it."

"How do you know all this?" Jojo asked. "From what I've heard, you've only fought her once."

"True" Dio admitted. "However, I never stopped learning. I used my superior corps of agents located all across the metropolis underworld to infiltrate her own hidden world. I know not where she is located, but my spies that stay close to her observe and report on nearly every move she makes. I know plenty about her, Jojo, more than you may wish to know yourself."

"Why tell me this?" Jojo asked. "If you don't want me to help and you keep driving me away from the coming battle, why bother talking to me?"

"I'm not heartless, Jojo" Dio said. He summoned his Stand out, a terrible fiend of black that Jojo mistook for a moment as a sudden shifting shadow. "In the event of such a war, I need as many allies as possible. You and I may have some kind of conflict with each other, but you can agree whatever ambitions I have fall short of outright Genocide."

"You're a villain" Jojo said adamantly. He started calmly breathing his Ripple again, circulating an electric crackle all throughout his body, in the hopes he could use it to fight against a Stand. "I won't trust you with anything, Dio. You've attempted my life a dozen times!"

"And this time I could win" Dio said, getting ready to fight. He spread his legs and let his arms fall out from his torso, keeping his triceps to his sides and his forearms angularly down from his ribs. He arched his back slightly as well, puffing out his chest. "Without a Stand, Jojo, you have no hope! You will die!"

"ORA!" Jojo shouted. He made a dashing charge in and threw a huge, powerful punch. Dio simply ducked it and caught it in SoaD's clawed hand. Jojo started wildly pulsing his Ripple into the Stand's invisible form in the hopes of somehow hurting it. Instead, he distorted it, forcing SoaD to draw its hand away against Dio's orders.

_Just as I suspected_ Dio said as he leaped away and desummoned his Stand. _The Life Ripple of Jojo can add life to anything, including a Stand which has no life. That's why his is so far along in its evolution. When he uses his Ripple on another Stand he forced life into it, making it gain consciousness. If my Stand gained its own mind it could berserk and kill me. I should avoid that attack of his._

"HA!" Jojo shouted. He made another punch for Dio's gut. Dio rolled through the air in a spinning flip. Jojo dented the tree that was behind Dio, and with his Ripple crackling the bark as he drew his hand away, he forced a growth of beautiful flowers from under the tree's skin. Jojo glared righteously, a faint echo of a foreign figure with glowing white eyes beside him.

"Here it comes..." Dio said anxiously. "System of a Down, tear him apart!" At Dio's command, his Stand came forth with its arms crossed in an X at its chest. It reeled its back up, whipped its head in the air and threw out its arms with extended claws. It then roared in its horridly shrill

"WRAAAAAAAAIIII!!!!" The claws were a meter long, slender and black, and they came for Jojo from out of Dio's effective range. Jojo ducked to avoid the first swipe, lifted his feet up to avoid the second. He fell slowly and caught himself on the ground with only one Ripple-charged finger. With the power of justice and his own life force behind him he made a huge push from that one finger and his arm into the air. He flipped forward in the winds above the trees and drew back his right arm as he descended. Dio looked up and moved away, dodging Jojo's ground-smashing punch. SoaD hopped back with Dio, joining him with its arms in a cross at its chest. Dio crossed his own arms normally and looked at Jojo stuck in the ground.

"What now, Johnathan?" Dio said. Jojo grunted for a moment and glared up at his foe. SoaD was raising its bladed claw up to cut him apart. Dio was so positive that he would remain static and die that he had underestimated the great tenacity of a Joestar. Jojo yanked his arm up from the ground, scratching it off the shrapnel of the ground, and started running forward. Dio was surprised to see him, and in his surprise he forgot to defend, and thus he was even more surprised and hurt by Jojo's massive punch. Dio was thrown against a tree that he willingly bounded off of. Jojo punched through that very tree and quickly retrieved his battered arm to continue fighting.

_Damn_ Dio cursed briefly. He barely dodged Jojo's next punch and got cut on the cheek as a result. _I didn't anticipate him being this aggressive!_

"ORA!" Jojo shouted. He made many punches at Dio, only a few connecting, but those few were very powerful. Dio attempted to use his Stand again, raising up his arm to command SoaD to raise its own powerful claws, but something unprecedented happened.

_Remember Jojo _a distant voice echoed in Johnathan's battle-engaged mind. _Ours is a lineage that has spanned through generations not because of the power we sought but the power we managed. We made a lot out of a little and we never squandered our good fortune. Every Joestar has done his part to make the world a better place somehow. When I am gone it will fall upon you to carry on the Joestar family, and to spread the same good will and prosperity that I have given so many! Achieve greatness, son! Live your life for others!!!_

With the voice of his father resonating loudly, Jojo's spirit awoke in full. Tears formed in his eyes and his Ripple exploded into a violent cloud. Dio and his Stand were forced away form the flash to see a new, more powerful Jojo!

Beside him stood a mighty beige-colored figure, wider than Jojo himself at the shoulders. Its legs were long and plated with powerful armor, its knee joints were exposed with some robotic gear for movement. Its torso was muscular to a nearly comical extend, forming more of a flat-ended U shape than a normal V. Perfectly sculpted muscles formed on its front and its back. Two massive and powerful arms ended with a circular marking on the back of each hand with more exposed gears at the elbows and wrists. Two thick straps stretched from two tanks on its back down to its belted waist. It's face was stern and forceful of will, covered from its nose and eyes up by a helmet that sloped from the forehead up to a sharp end.

This was sheer power, Jojo's mighty Stand! **The World** is born!

_Amazing_ Dio thought. _In such a short time he has manifested such a powerful Stand! I even feel weak looking at it!_ Jojo's eyes were flashing white with rage. He had nothing for contempt for Dio, and now that he had a Stand to fight with he would show it.

"Dio" Jojo growled, "I can't allow any monsters to live in a perfect world. I must...destroy you!" The greatest fear of all had become true. The power of a Stand had maddened the righteous and pure Jojo into a power-engorged manic! Now, with the power of The World a this back, he faces Dio with all consuming hatred and fury. A battle is about to begin!

* * *

And as that battle began between two of the worlds strongest men, another fight was raging deep within the bowels of the underworld. A battle of paramount importance. A battle of wills between a mystery man hiding in the shadows, and MUSE.

She sat calmly across a small table playing chess with some strange man who had wandered past her defenses and into the hub of her operations. She assumed that he was no normal man to do such an act and welcomed him to play with her, so long as he kept his powers in check.

"So tell me" MUSE began, "what brings you to me?"

"I have an urgent proposition for you" the man whispered. His pieces stayed static in place as MUSE moved hers. Then they moved on their own, guided by invisible hands.

"What kind of proposition?" MUSE asked.

"An urgent one" the man replied still in voiceless whisper.

"You realize you are within my reach" MUSE warned. "If you try me I will kill you."

"You can indeed try" the man said "but it will do you little good." MUSE grew angry, but did well to conceal it behind a veil of utter calmness. "I know of every Stand user that currently lives in your immediate-effect area, the one town where most of your undercover army resides."

"Do you now?" MUSE asked very casually. She started to move her piece and the man moved his piece almost at the exact same time, cornering her own piece on the field.

"There are fifteen" he said. "Gerald Reach was only one. Right now the man who beat you blind named Dio Brando and three of his greater lackeys are taking residence over a gang-banger hot-spot. Several more reside in private within the city limits. Two are frequently seen at the local prestige university just outside of town. Does any of that strike you as relevant?"

MUSE was speechless in a fantastic way. She had never anticipated so much information at once, and all of it was so useful to her! She had known only about three Stand users, one of whom happened to be an infamous gangster Starski Johnson, and now she knew the location of her greatest threat: Dio! She blindly moved a piece on the board, cornering one of the man's pieces.

"I can see that you are happy about all that" the man said. "Now, what about the names...?"

"You know the names as well!?" MUSE exclaimed happily. "What do you want for that information?" The man shifted in his darkness, placing his chin in the palm of his hand and crossing his legs.

"I doubt you would give it to me" he admitted apathetically. "There isn't really a reason for you to barter since you don't have anything I need at the moment. Perhaps I shall simply leave you with what could be considered to be a giant lie and let you stew on it for a few weeks." MUSE got mad. She summoned her Stand and caged the man in with her nasty tentacles. Nothing but a cool breeze of hatred blew from her face. "Hmph" the man huffed. In a flash of power incomprehensible, MUSE's Stand was blown away and her along with it. The man made one final move on the board, as MUSE's leg had moved a piece on its own, and he won the game instantly.

"If you really require this information" the man said as he got up to leave, "you will find me something that no one else can." MUSE looked up angrily from the floor. "If you cannot give me that in exchange...**perform a hysterectomy on yourself** as alternative payment." MUSE looked up in outright confusion at the man as he left. "I shall check back in forty days. If you wish to find something for me have it by then...or be missing something to conduct business." The man threw her a card of some kind that she caught and held up to her face. "Farewell" the man finally said as he left. MUSE looked at the picture as hard as she could and made a smile.

She already knew what to do...


	20. Johnathan Joestar, The World 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The stand-off of Dio and Jojo has reached an unexpected climax. Jojo's Stand The World has made itself known at last, flexing its powerful arms by its sides. Dio and his Stand, the villainous System of a Down, stood squared against Jojo in the trees of the park they were fighting in.

Jojo made the first move. Out of his blind, justice-driven fury he started running forward. The World echoed his movement fluidly. Dio started cautiously moving away, much slower than Jojo's running, and kept his Stand ready. Jojo wound up his arm tight to his side and prepared what looked like an uppercut. Dio clasped his hands together to catch it and stopped moving. The World started floating ahead of Jojo with its arm wound just as tight and prepared to make a powerful punch to Dio's gut.

"SoaD!" Dio summoned. His Stand came up in front of him with its clawed fingers together, ready to catch The World's fist. Jojo attacked, sending The World's strong arm at Dio's gut. SoaD blocked. The force of the impact threw Dio and his Stand up through the leaves of a tree and over two more before he regained himself and expanded his wings before crashing to the ground. Dio got up, dizzied by the blow, and saw Jojo slowly pacing forward with The World beside him.

_Incredible!_ Dio thought. _So much power in only one punch! It's more powerful that even my Stand! Not to mention the speed of the punch and its movements. They were so precise and controlled. Jojo's Stand has some amazing potential power behind it._ Dio got up and stood lurching forward with his arms near the ground. His Stand hovered behind him menacingly with its fingers spread apart and its horrific maw gaping slightly. The World and Jojo were undaunted and kept walking ahead.

"You have short range" Dio noted. "Just like mine, your Stand is a 'Power' Stand. It has tremendous power but it can't travel far from you. I wonder though, Jojo, can your Stand attack at a range like mine can? Or can it only fight as close as you can?"

Jojo started to answer Dio's question. He stood between two trees and moved The World to one. The World gripped the tree with its huge arms, grabbing its wrists on the other side, the started pulling upwards. Jojo just stood like a statue, glaring through the shadow over his eyes at his nemesis.

"I don't believe you, Jojo" Dio stated bluntly. "You don't know the first thing about proper Stand fighting!" Dio summoned up his Stand to extend its nasty claws and had it rush in for an attack. Just as he did a loud, crashing creaking started blaring from The World. The Stand was pulling the tree from out of the ground, as Jojo intended it to do, and started leaning it towards Dio. He was shaken for a moment, but with his own Stand already out he knew the entire act would be useless. He brought SoaD back to him quickly and prepared its claws to rip the tree apart as it fell.

"ORA!" Jojo shouted. He rushed in while SoaD was occupied, eying the falling tree in front of it, and began throwing his fists at Dio. The World had disappeared already.

"Useless, Jojo!" Dio shouted as he blocked. Jojo's fists started multiplying as he swung. His arms went faster and faster, his strength reverberated through his waist and his shoulders and his back and all of that energy transferred into his mighty fists. Dio felt the power behind each blow and had to shove most of them away for fear of breaking his hands blocking the steely punches.

"Dammit" Dio cursed. Dio mentally commanded SoaD to slice the tree in half so he wouldn't be hit. The Stand came in closer to its user and moved its bladed arms as quickly as it could, shredding the bark and wood of the tree apart around Dio. Jojo was still in the line of falling tree, but in his righteous rage he didn't notice until the tree was nearly hitting him.

"WRAAAAAAIIII!!!" SoaD roared. The tree was hitting Jojo already, pushing him down slowly. Dio stepped back with a smile on his face and waited. Just as he would have predicted, The World brought its ghostly hand up through Jojo's head and punched the tree away. With every manic fist it delivered, it echoed in Jojo's synonymous battle cry, leading to its own hollow-voiced string of powerful shouts.

"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!!!"

The tree flew through the air and landed on its other side, crashing a few other trees as it did. As the thin forest toppled under the might of the Joestar power, Dio started to become hopeful. He looked over at Jojo, who was no ready to punch again with The World right behind him. Four arms to hit with were much more powerful than only two. Dio realized it just in time, as he brought SoaD back to help him the instant Jojo started his barrage of punches with The World.

Fist met fist at light-speed! The two young men were matched hit for hit, punching knuckles and meeting each balled hand flat on to block. Their Stands were fighting at the same pace, floating above them. The World's off-white fists met SoaD's total black claws and deflected the punches that came at an even pace.

"And to think I was impressed at first" Dio said. "Your Stand isn't even that fast! Jojo, are you trying to threaten me with something so weak You should know better. I'm Di-"

"ORA!" The World shouted. Suddenly SoaD started slowing down. The World's punches were breaking through SoaD's defense, and Dio suffered the pain of the strong blows to his chest and his shoulders.

_What now?_ Dio growled internally. _I'm not tired or injured at all. Why would my Stand, a direct reflection of my own might and spirit, slow down!?_ The truth was that Dio hadn't slowed, but The World was simply too fast for him.

Soon every punch slipped past SoaD and Dio was sent flying away after a few seconds of being punched by four horrendously powerful fists.

* * *

One the dust settled and the light started to fade, Dio picked himself up from the ground. He had been punched so viciously, so strongly that he had flown clear into the side of a building and passed out for a moment. He started coughing as he stirred and found, in the motion of his breathing chest, that he had suffered some breakage in his bones.

"Damn that man" Dio said. "Ah..." His painful moans and the destructive crash earlier had alerted several young students to check on him.

"Oh my god!" a girl shouted. "Sir, are you hurt? What happened?"

_If you can't tell that I'm hurt by looking_ Dio thought _then please do the world a favor and kill yourself, idiot..._

"I am fine" Dio said harshly. He struggled to stand up, finding it hard to stay rigid in the air with so much pain and rupturing in his body. He summoned his Stand, which was cracked and damaged all over, to help support him by latching itself inside his legs and gripping the walls with its arms. Dio let out a deep sigh, and along with it a slight drool of deep red.

"You need a hospital" another student called, this one a young man. "Please, sit back down and stay calm!"

_Vermin_ Dio internally growled. He continued walking forward, eager to find Jojo once more and deliver his own breed of justice to the justly mad young man. _Ever since my Stand powers developed I have gained amazing healing powers, as well as heightened senses and physical strength. I have recovered form a broken hand and a stab wound in only a week. These bones will set themselves and heal in no time, but until then I can only fight to run, not win. Jojo has the advantage here. He has won for now._

"DIO!!!" Jojo blared. All the students turned toward the park trees, seeing a distant figure sprinting through them. His eyes flashed white through the shadows, fixed solely on the injured young man with flowing golden hair.

"Shit" Dio cursed. He felt a wetness swelling in his throat and suddenly coughed a lump of thick blood. "Fuck..." he weakly added. "I...can't..."

"Isn't that Johnathan Joestar?" one student pointed out. "What's he doing?"

"Did he do this?" the girl asked.

"Of course not" a boy noted. "He must have fallen from somewhere...or, got hit by...something...How did this happen?"

"Jojo..." Dio muttered. "You've gone mad..." Jojo broke through the tree line into the light with his Stand hovering mightily above him. He wound up to make another massive punch to Dio's head, but the outstretched hand of peace stopped him. Dio held his hand up to catch the incoming fist, but he missed and now didn't withdraw it.

"Stop...Jojo" Dio ordered weakly. Even in this state, with death a mere arm away, he would not reduce himself to pleading. "You have gone mad with power...you can't control it yet. Cease fighting me. Jojo...you must redirect this hatred and rage away from me and at our true enemy: MUSE! Try, Jojo!" Dio stopped to breath and look up to see if he was making any sort of effect. The World was still active but Jojo's fist had retraced and uncurled to his side once more. The madness was wearing off now, and with it went the tangibility of The World. "You're stronger...than this..." Dio passed out once more, this time going down for the rest of the count.

Jojo fell to his knees and nearly sank all the way to his hands if he hadn't balanced his torso out to stay erect. He stared vacantly for a moment, having almost no real recollection of the battle, and then came under the painful realization of Dio's terrible pain. He started to shiver with the immense discomfort of the terrible truth that welled up within him.

"What have I done" Jojo asked. He looked at his hands, seeing through the darkness as the ghostly arms of The World followed him. Just seeing those powerful arms sent a shiver of rebellious anger and berserk force through his entire body, so he pulled them back immediately. "H-How could I do this? I thought I was above being manipulated by the power, but I...God, no! I've become a monster already!"

"Mr. Joestar!" one of the students gasped. "You really did this?"

"How?" a young man asked with deep confusion. "Did you hit him with a car...an invisible car?"

"Get away from me!" Jojo ordered in panic. "I...I can't stay out here! I'm too strong!" Jojo ran away in a rush. He left Dio in the care of the cool night air and the confused young students that stayed gathered around him. Dio's breathing trailed off into a deep, painful sleep, and the students continued to stand around hoping something good would happen for the strange and mysterious young man.

* * *

The next day was a dismal one. An overcast sky shining ominous dim light through the city. REO stood waiting at the arch, like he promised, but Jojo was nowhere to be found. He inquired many times to all the students that he could find, but at length no one could answer him straighly about Jojo's whereabouts.

Then Erina came along.

"Robert?" Erina asked. REO turned and saw the beautiful girl in her frilled, stylish dress coming his way. He immediately turned away form her to straighten himself out and make himself presentable in Jojo's absence, hoping the cute girl would notice. "Hi. Are you waiting for-"

"Yeah" REO answered prematurely. "That guy, he's never been late before. I'm starting to wonder if he's already gotten a girlfriend behind my back."

"Jojo isn't dating" Erina said sadly. "He...he's locked himself in his room since yesterday. No one can figure out why. And this morning, some man in weird clothes came by and demanded to be shown to his room. Now he's locked in there with him."

"Man in strange clothes?" REO repeated. "Like, how strange? Checkerboards and weird floral drug-trip patterns everywhere?"

"Yes" Erina plainly answered.

"That's Zeppeli" REO said in surprise. "What's he doing here? Unless...this means Jojo's..." _His Stand!_

"Robert?" Erina asked. "What's going on? What happened to Jojo, and who is Zeppeli?"

"His legal guardian for the last, like, ten years" REO answered as if everything was fine. "There must have been some family emergency. I should go see him. I'm like his brother after all."

"Robert!" Erina shouted demandingly. "It's common knowledge what happened to Johnathan Joestar's family, namely that he's the last of it. Why don't you stop the lying and tell me what's really going on!?" REO froze with his back to her. He glared ahead through the shade of his bowler derby hat and sighed deeply.

"I'm sorry Erina" REO apologized. "It's...something private. If you ask Jojo you'll just get a lie too, so don't try, for your sake." Erina was at a loss for words. She didn't understand a secret so amazing that it couldn't even be explained in simple terms for her sake. "Again, sorry!" REO said finally. He ran off for the dorms in the vain hopes of comforting his friend in a dire time of need.


	21. Bad Religion 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

REO continued racing around, ignoring the security personnel trying to accost him, and finally found his way all the way up to Jojo's room. Zeppeli was standing in the middle of the hall ,staring at the door, and breathing out in odd rhythms.

"Mr. Zeppeli!" REO called. "What's going on?"

"Robert" Zeppeli said. REO came back in and stopped to catch his breath. "All is not well, I'm afraid. I talked with Jojo...he's feeling contradicted. He gravely injured Dio upon first activating his Stand and has now grown fearful of it, as I once was of mine own."

"Really?" REO asked.

"There are many types of Stands" Zeppeli explained, "but that is a lecture for another time. Right now, I'm sorry to say, our Jojo is beyond our help. He must conquer his own demons and overcome his fears alone if he is to make any progress in his own control. I suggest we...head to the address young Gerald gave you and stay out of Jojo's way."

"How'd you get the address?" REO asked.

"Jojo demanded we inspect it" Zeppeli said "but he also was quite firm in having no part in it. Between the two of us, I'm sure we can perform a dutiful reconnaissance."

"Yeah" REO agreed. "Right...um, what about his roommates?"

"Don't be so foolishly chivalrous" Zeppeli chided, slapping REO hard on the back. "We can do it. I've got enough power for the two of us! This young man doesn't sound so bad anyway!"

"Well" REO hesitantly said, "if you say so. I still feel weird about leaving Jojo behind, but, he's tougher than me. I guess he'll be okay."

"All we can do is have faith, Robert" Zeppeli said. "Now come! My car is out front!"

"Was it the piece of shit?" REO asked mockingly. Zeppeli made an annoyed face and him and delivered a swift tap with his Stand power that made REO trip over his own shoes. He staggered forward for a few steps, determined not to fall, and regained his balance just inches away from Erina's chest. He whipped his head back and followed Zeppeli out, trying hard not to meet her gaze.

_Something strange his happening_ Erina told herself, _and by God I'm going to be a part of it! I've been shut out of strange things my whole life, from my parents shady dealings to my teacher's hidden curriculum in my old private schools! _

Erina marced righteously to Jojo's dorm door and knocked politely. It wasn't answered for a long stretch of time. As she motioned to knock again it opened slowly with the young black man standing behind it in a business suit with an undone tie.

"Hey" he greeted.

"Hello" Erina replied. "I'm here to see Jojo. Is he...available?"

"Sorry" the man apologized. "He can't talk with anyone right now. He's...feeling kind of depressed. Repressed memories, I think."

"Can I please see him anyway?" Erina pleaded. After a moment of wild assumption, the man nodded and complied. He opened the door and stepped aside, pointing her in the direction of Jojo's locked room.

"Good luck talking to him" he said. "He's got that door bolted up pretty good." Erina nodded and turned her attention to the door. She knocked it lightly and listened for any movement inside. There was none. She knocked again, and this time affirmed herself.

"John?" she asked softly. "It's Erina. Can I please come in?" No response, save for the almost mute movement of Jojo between his bed covers. "I don't understand what exactly is going on, but I still want to help you if I can. Please Jojo, give me a chance here..." Her plea fell on deaf ears. Jojo stopped moving entirely, and she wasn't about to try to use any of her greater guilt techniques to coax him out. Instead, she invited herself to the sitting area of the dorm and sat on the long sofa couch to usurp the television and wait Jojo out.

* * *

Within only a few minutes of traffic, Zeppeli and REO had reached their destination. With a parallel park across the street, they got out and eyes down their target. A large apartment complex with three stories and six rows of wide windows. A sign in front of the property, dated several months past, notarized that the building had been legally condemned and shut down to the public.

"Well" Zeppeli stated, "that's quite odd. It seems that this building is no longer in use. Perhaps Gerald gave you some disinformation?"

"He wasn't lying" REO said. "Just to be sure I traced all his calls to the address and matched it all up. A guy named **Eric Geirtzz** lives there."

"Well then" Zeppeli said "I suppose if he knows we;re coming we may as well march right in, eh?"

"Just a second" REO said. He summoned his Stand into his arm as a long and snaking chain, then searched around for something for him to latch onto. "Let's get closer first, but without going in."

"What for?" Zeppeli asked.

"I can trace electric signals" REO explained "with my Stand. If something has been in use inside that building within the past 24 hours I can find out where it is inside and where that electricity went if anywhere."

"Smart move" Zeppeli said, giving him a thumb up of encouragement. As they illegally crossed the vacant street the finer details of the building started to come into view. The complex itself wasn't very run-down for a decommissioned building. There was some chipped paint down near the door where some obvious damage under vandalism may have may have come up. The front doors made of well-carved, quality wood were undamaged as well. The windows along the ground floor were cracked here and there but none of them were broken. If anything, the building looked perfectly fine for an inner-city hive of former crime.

The **Hudson Building**, formerly known as the 'Hudson Project', had been the subject of gentrification within the last decade. The entire area had been renovated from the ground up and all the families that once inhabited them either adapted to working menial labor or they moved all together into even deeper poverty. The people who moved in promised to keep the culture of the underground alive in the remodeled sector, changing the blues and jazz clubs into blues and jazz clubs with outrageous door fees and service charges. The cuisine, namely the delicatessens and fast food, were shifted into privately owned exclusive restaurants and fast food was eliminated all together. With no place to work well or live off of easily, most families left as soon as they were able. The ones that stayed behind worked as janitors or maintenance workers just to keep their heads above water.

But the cosmopolitans and elite wealthy that dominated the internal urbanization didn't care. They ignored the obviously' linked raise in gang activity after the remodeling. They ignored the rampant crime in the outer limits of the city. They didn't care, not until Starski and the Lovebugs moved in and started terrorizing on a very personalized scale. The Hudson Building was one of the first targets for mass theft and general terrorizing as a gang. They robbed every rich fat-ass who stayed within the walls blind and left before anyone could figure out anything. No one knew it, but Starski's Stand played the biggest part in the event as it allowed him to keep the oxygen levels at a minimum so his racket of searching and stealing would go undisturbed while the normal, breathable air circulated through him constantly.

Now it was abandoned, deemed politically cursed as every person of wealth that stayed in it in the past years was either robbed or nearly robbed by the gang. After its decommission by the city, urban legends of a ghost representing the wrath of the elite who were robbed started springing up. Anyone who tried to go inside was rightly dealt with and suffered horrible lesions and bruises all over their body, particularly the back. Now it was the task of Zeppeli and REO to enter this building with a high sense of confidence and retrieve the allegiance of the accused ghost, a man named Eric Geirtzz.

They stepped across the threshold of the front gate and the battle began, and invisible threat circling and observing them constantly.

"Now what?" Zeppeli asked.

"There!" REO announced. He spun his chain around and hooked it on an exposed cable box. He channeled all the information of electrical routing he could until he had a definite report to give. It took him only a few seconds, however, thanks to the mental capacity for such knowledge his Stand granted him. "He must be really paranoid" REO noted. "Right now there are twelve rooms that are surging with electricity and outgoing automated telephones. He could be anywhere in there!"

"Then we'll search everywhere" Zeppeli said adamantly. He made a motion for the doors and opened them wide. A cool hiss of foreboding air rushed out and left a snaking trail of odd mist along the ground. REO could feel the freezing cold air from where he stood, but he knew he had to follow Zeppeli into it.

* * *

The lobby held a small reception desk built into a cave in the walls so only employees carrying a card or alternative key could enter the desk area. Across from the desk was a sitting area around a dark, silent television. A bar barren of any complimentary breakfast in years was also near the only hallway leading away. Signs pointing out the major parts of the hallway, such as a vending machine and the elevator, were on most of the walls and corners, just in case someone got hopelessly lost all of a sudden.

"Kinda spooky" REO noted. Zeppeli stopped breathing suddenly and listened. REO could see his breath and found it odd that Zeppeli was able to control his breath so perfectly that it didn't even enter the air visibly. Then Zeppeli sighed out and warmed the very air around him and REO.

"The air conditioning" Zeppeli said "has been on for ages, it seems. There isn't very sophisticated central heating for the lobby, is there? Just a few fans and vents to dry the air and keep it around 70."

"How do you know?" REO asked.

"Just a hunch" Zeppeli said "but I'd think that thin vent up there with the 'Central Heating/Cooling Limited to 70 degrees at all times' could lend us some important clues."

"So are you going to be a smart ass" REO began "all day or are we doing something important here? Can you use your Stand to find this guy quickly?"

"Are you mad?" Zeppeli asked. "In such conditions I can't use my stand **period!** It simply wouldn't work here!"

"Oh, come on!" REO said with great exasperation. "You mean I'm on my own here!?" Zeppeli took in a calm breath through his nose and parted his smiling lips just enough to let a rippling wisp of visible air echo into the chill of the room. It waved and pulsed with the magnificent ripple pattern, five simultaneously concentric patterns around a single point that extended outwards like a star.

"I intend to fight if need be" Zeppeli said. "Hopefully, for the sake of our future ally, I will not have to. I have faith in you, Robert." Zeppeli gave REO an eccentric hat-brim flick by turning his whole arm around and flicking the hat onto its brim with a single, light tap. The ripple traveled into the cloth and forced the hat to stay perfectly erect on REO's head, even if he tilted it to the side completely, until he took it up and placed it normally again. Zeppeli started down the single hallway while REO caught up.

A dark thing slithered away from outside of their vision and returned to an unknown place within the living complex. Once there it disappeared back into the mental void of its owner.

"Fools" a man said from his comfortable couch placed in front of a bright, flashing television. "I have no intention of siding with a bunch of spineless pussies. Let them come and try to convert me! Let the fuckers just try! HAHAHAHAHAA!!!!"

Eric, the man in the room, sat in nothing but a deluxe, fleece bathrobe and slippers. His dirt-blond hair was smoothly combed on the left side of his head, but frazzled and wildly unkempt on the other. It looked like he gelled it and had an epileptic fit with that hemisphere of his skull. His fingernails, for some reason, were also painted a deep green and were chipped from the intentionally freezing air. He had nice, thick lips that complimented his complexly light-blond skin and brown eyes with eyebrows angled in sort of upward arches of deeper brown. His nose was thick at its tip but he had thin nostrils, making him look slightly bulbous.

"Ahh..." he sighed, "it feels good to be able to laugh. Still, I wonder who these men are. Maybe Gerald panicked and told his attackers where I was. Well, they're in for a nasty little surprise." Eric extended a hand to his side above the floor and flicked all his fingers out at once. The misty cold air started to stir as he summoned his Stand. "Go on, **Bad Religion**, take care of your guests." With a lowing growl the Stand disappeared into one of the vents and vanished. Eric leaned back into his chair and placed his chin on his fist with a smirk. A smirk of evil...


	22. Bad Religion 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The mystery Stand, Bad Religion, as wielded by the suspicious Eric Geirtzz, started its task to trap and ensnare the lives of the two uninvited guests. Zeppeli and REO could feel something wrong in the air, aside from the freezing coldness, but they could not exactly discern what it was.

"Ah, man" REO said with a wince of pain.

"What is it?" Zeppeli asked, turning around to see REO clutching at his foot.

"My toe's asleep" REO said, still writing weakly in pain. "Gah, this sucks! I can barely walk!"

"This happens all the time" Zeppeli explained "in cold climates or rooms. Your toes are just a bit numb from the low temperature. It's nothing serious."

"But it feels weird!" REO gravely whined. Zeppeli sighed and walked to his pained comrade. From a ventilation shaft near the ceiling of the hallway, a cold and intangible hand crept into view. Neither Zeppeli nor REO could see it, as their attention was fixated on REO's frozen toe. The hand made a silent grab for the wall in an attempt to drag its whole body into view, but suddenly the air shifted unfavorably. Zeppeli activated his standard Sun Ripple, a warm aura of healing that he channeled into his hands and used in a grasp with REO's leg.

"This should do it" Zeppeli said. "I'll just kick-start your circulation. It'll be painless, mostly."

"Mostly?" REO said nervously. Bad Religion's hand retracted slowly, snaked its way through the labyrinthine vent system, and returned to its master's lair. Silently it hissed, moving the cool air with undulating waves of information that reached Eric's pale-blue ears.

"A healing Stand?" Eric said. "Now that is troublesome. My best bet would be to separate the stronger one from the weak, whiny one and take them out individually. Bad Religion, see what you can do." From the darkness it came, into the darkness it fled. Bad Religion set out on its motives to divide and conquer the two potential enemies. With its master's shared knowledge of the building, the self-sentient Stand developed its own plan and started setting it into action.

It first observed that Zeppeli and REO were heading down the hallway again, then worked its way ahead of them to block off the stairwell leading up. It stole various items from sofas to clock radios from all the surrounding rooms and made an instant blockade with its powers. When Zeppeli and REO came to the stairwell, they saw the shocking results of its work and stood stunned. Although Zeppeli was more serious and deliberative than stunned like Robert.

"Jeez" REO said exasperatedly. "This guy is pretty damn reclusive."

"So he was anticipating us" Zeppeli said below his breath. "That would mean this cold is also intentional, but what is the purpose?" REO was looking over the blockade for a weak spot, but his keen eyes could only see the wall collapsing on him if he moved one thing out of place, and with all the sharp corners of the furniture and the general heavy weight of its parts he didn't want to risk it.

"Robert" Zeppeli called. "This man is obviously on one of the floors above us! We must find a way up before he has a chance to block us out completely."

"How about the elevator?" REO asked hopefully. Zeppeli crossed his arms. In a fight with a man who potentially controlled a long-range Stand that knew every nook and cranny of the building they were trapped in, the elevator was the last place they would want to go. REO realized this after a few cold moments of the eccentric man glaring him down. "Uh, never mind. I'm sure there's some emergency staircase around here."

"Right" Zeppeli agreed. "If all else fails, we can search for a fire-escape and proceed to the roof. Then we can work our way down without the fear of collapsing the barriers in our way."

"Great plan" REO praised. "I'm glad I thought of it." Zeppeli chuckled. He started back into the hallway, waving REO on to follow. Bad Religion hid nearby in the shadows, waiting anxiously for its chance to pounce.

_The more I think of it_ REO thought _the more I'm remembering the complex nature of Stands and their users. It may be just a generalization right now, but most of us users happen to be geniuses of some kind. Jojo's just an all around smart guy, Dio's a criminal mastermind, Zeppeli's a history freak and Gerald is famed for his near perfect test scores on his entrance exams. This guy may be intentionally leading us in the wrong direction to throw us off...maybe..._

"Hey Zeppeli" REO started. Zeppeli turned but continued to walk. "What if he's actually in the basement? That barricade could have been made recently, since he knew we were coming, to throw us completely off track and lock us upstairs. He could be downstairs, where all the power equipment is, waiting for us to do something stupid and get stranded."

"You may be right" Zeppeli said, "but let's consider this: the basement could also be a trap. With all that electrical equipment, more traps could be made than just dangerously unbalanced walls to block our path. We need to be extremely cautious in our approach, consider every turn a wrong one, and go where we are least likely to be hung by our own ties."

"So then where should we start looking?" REO asked.

"I already said" Zeppeli said coolly. "Where the threat of death is almost gone, that's where our cowardly friend is hiding. He certainly wouldn't want to die on accident from one of his own traps, now would he?" REO nodded and closed the space between him and Zeppeli. They walked in tandem strides, glaring down the corridors of lush carpet and crackling, frozen wallpaper, while Bad Religion stalked them from corners unseen.

* * *

As the two walked cautiously down the hallway, they felt a sudden twinge at their necks. A sudden sense of urgency, of danger. Then the lights shut off, the result of Bad Religion's plan from within the very walls it stalked.

"Great" REO sighed sarcastically. "Now we get to walk in the dark. Can't you glow, or something?"

"I'm counting that" Zeppeli said "as a sarcastic remark. The Sun Ripple can only exude so much light. It can't illuminate an entire hallway, at least mine can't. Don't worry, though, I have anticipated this and came prepared." Zeppeli made some motions in the pitch, windowless darkness and pulled out a small device. Breathing rhythmically the device started to glow and brightened a huge area around the two. REO had to shield his eyes until they adjusted properly.

"You brought a flashlight?" REO asked.

"Close!" Zeppeli said, shooting up an arm and a finger to give his answer a somewhat extravagant illustration. "This is a stick made of closely-hewn organic fibers grown in India. In my studies regarding the Ripple I came upon one particular specimen of snake that conducted immense amounts of energy through its skin and into the ground. I took the skins from several of those animals and made devices like these. I call them Sun Sticks, because they not only glow like the sun but emit the same radiation when charged with the Sun Ripple. Each is made to resemble a small, utility flashlight to avoid suspicion."

"Cool" REO said. "You know there are actual flashlights that work right out there in the world, right?"

"You're treading on dangerous grounds, Robert" Zeppeli taunted. He tapped his hat, sending it straight up to the ceiling where it somehow stuck. REO looked up at it curiously, then tried to swat it down. "If our enemy can manipulate electricity as well as move heavy objects, I wouldn't want him to have an advantage with any device, no matter how small. A flashlight may have lead to our undoing!"

"Well, that's thinking ahead" REO complimented. He made a final leap and swipe at his hat, dislodging it from the ceiling at last. It fell to the floor and rolled near the darkness at the very border of Zeppeli's slowing radius. REO reached down to pick it up, placed it upon his head, and then registered something out of the utter darkness. There was a vaguely human figure **crawling about on all fours**. It disappeared into a room and the lights began to spasmodically flicker for several moments.

"Damn!" Zeppeli cursed. "If this goes on he will assault us. Quickly! Run into those doors at the end of the hall!" Zeppeli and REO, despite his current shock, started running for the large doors. REO looked behind him as he ran, hoping to catch another glimpse of that thing in the darkness, but it was gone. His eyes faced forward again as he ran and Zeppeli delivered a fierce flying kick to open the doors before them.

They were in an expansive room shrouded in a low, stagnant mist of cold. From the décor on the walls, the hanging chandelier covered with aged icicles, and the arrangement of the tables and chairs it seemed to be some sort of meeting room or more likely a ballroom.

"Well now" Zeppeli mused. After a moment the door closed behind them with a slam. Zeppeli and REO only acknowledged it. They dared not expose their backs to the wide, open room on the chance that their opponent had some sort of ranged attack and was waiting in the mist. Bad Religion slipped into the shrouds of mist far away from the two and reached for a frosty stereo system. It touched the play button and an ear-throbbing bass-line of dance music started stirring the mist.

"What the hell!?" REO shouted, covering his ears. Zeppeli stood firm against the noise. It didn't seem to phase him at all. The next step of the plan for Bad Religion was to seal all the exits but one, the one that led downstairs. "Is this the Stand? Or is he in here?"

"No" Zeppeli answered. "he is still away from us. Something else is in here."

"Duck, old man!" REO ordered. Zeppeli didn't raise an eyebrow in defiance. He knew when urgency overruled reason. REO had activated his Stand, Trapt, and was spinning it over head. Zeppeli crouched far down, bending his long legs at the knees and draping his hands over his angled knees. REO loosened the grip on his chain just enough to get it to fly out into the mist. He was searching for something, his intangible Stand passing through the mist without stirring it. Bad Religion saw the glint of metal coming its way and leaped high up onto the wall.

"Up there!" Zeppeli warned. REO stopped spinning his Stand and reeled it in mentally. The Stand was in plain sight at last!

It was grotesquely human in form, with a dark green complexion and exposed metallic-gray teeth on its mouth. It eyes were covered by a leathery growth and it had a head full of short, black spikes. All along its body it wore strange armor sporting bony growths that arched off to form huge holes and hooks on its shoulders, arms, legs and three long arcs that ran from its lower back to its neck like tubes. Its fingers were dug into the wall, meaning it obviously had claws, though its feet were much more apparent with three huge black talons digging into the frosty wall.

"Hhhchhhhhh!" it hissed. It started crawling in the same way that REO had seen earlier, and it made its way quickly to a large metal vent. Inside the vent it patched tow wires together and started up a large turbine fan system that made the mist kick up and bluster all around.

"A trap!" Zeppeli exclaimed, holding his arm to his face.

"Why didn't we see it coming!?" REO demanded.

"Can you grab it?" Zeppeli asked. "With this much space available I can make better use of my own Stand, but not without actually seeing my opponent!" Another fan kicked on and swept the mist up high. Bad Religion worked rapidly to turn on all the fans and vents and turbines in the shafts high up on the walls. Its plan was slowly working. Zeppeli and REO soon found themselves at the center of a swirling, impenetrable vortex of haze while it simply waited, arms crossed, ready to strike either of them down in a vicious pounce.

* * *

"Those fools" Eric scoffed. He leaned back with his eyes closed, channeling the images its Stand was seeing in the present and observing the actions of his two intruders. "They have no idea what Bad Religion can do! They still haven't figured out more than half of the puzzle! HAHAHA!!!" Eric just sat back and guffawed into his empty room, then an urge came over him. His stomach started churning hungrily. "Oh, shit. I forgot to eat again. Dammit, I was enjoying too much television." Eric got up from his couch and moved for the door. He opened his eyes and looked at the thermostat as he passed.

"Good" he noted. "Still just 56 degrees. I'll make it colder in a little bit. That'll fuck them up bad!" He proceeded outside and took a sharp right around a long corner to a vending machine. Being a high-class hotel, the vending machines were equally sophisticated and dispensed vitamin-enriched foods and pre-warmed goods in plastic containers. However, nearly all of the food was past its prime as the establishment had been abandoned for so long. So, seeing nothing else, Eric stole a dehydrated energy bar which never really expires, two more flavorful sandwiches which were quite stale and frozen, and an icy bottle of water.

"The only thing I really want right now" he said to himself as he hooked a sharp right around the corner, "is a hot meal. Maybe once these two leave I can go to the kitchen and **fry up their bodies! **HAHAHAHAHAA!!!"


	23. Bad Religion 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"Stand fast, Robert" Zeppeli said. "I believe I can use my Stand here to destroy the fans, but it may do more damage than needed. Please, stand back."

"Heh" REO chuckled. "Hehe, haha, hahaha! Ehahaha!!!" REO started bursting out in a mad, devious chuckle. Bad Religion was not impressed, but it was slightly curious. "You fool! You moron! No, for doing something like this, you're a fucking bloody pant-pissing moron! Do you have any idea who I am!? I'm **Robert Edgar O. Speedwagon!** This is the perfect situation for my Stand to really take control! Zeppeli, duck!" Swept up in the bizarre behavior of his young companion, Zeppeli wordlessly obeyed and ducked low to the ground. "TRAPT!" he summoned. His Stand came out from his left wrist and spiraled around his hand. He started twirling the loose end and caught it in his right hand, then fed the chain through while he started to spin it high above his head. The wind had no effect on its phantasmal presence and slowly it began spinning towards the foggy barrier.

Bad Religion just watched it happen, seeing the chain pass by a hair of a second later each time it went its full rotation. It may be a Stand, but it behaves just like an ordinary chain, and when something as heavy as a steel chain is stretched that far it can only be spun around so quickly. Then it will start to drift downward, the unfortunate effects of gravity. In this case the effects of gravity are very fortunate, as the unwitting Bad Religion was unaware that its wide-gaped armor slots were perfect for the chain Stand to hitch onto and use to take control. The end link of the chain slid its middle latching component slowly down as it neared Bad Religion, and on the final pass with a monstrous battle-roar, REO let the chain go, extending its range to the maximum. The chain hit Bad Religion's side and wrapped once around it, finally latching into the left shoulder.

"Guah!" Eric gasped. He had just felt a harsh pressure against his entire chest and a particularly peculiar pinching at his left shoulder. He motioned to grab at the soft cloth and try to feel inside of it for a needle or stray plastic tag that may hav hardened in the cold, but felt nothing. "Wha?" Upon closer inspection of his skin, he saw that his skin was bunched up in a strange way, like an invisible force was pinching it. "Aw, shit. Those guys, one of them, must have used their Stand on mine! Damn. I guess I underestimated them...or I overestimated Bad Religion. He can't do everything on his own."

Back down in the ballroom, a frantic Bad Religion thrashed around in its chain binding. REO kept a tight hold on his captive Stand while Zeppeli analyzed it to the best of his expert ability. He used his own Stand energy, which resonated from his hand, to scan the enemy's attributes.

"I see" Zeppeli said, taking a deep breath out. The had adjourned form the endlessly noisy ballroom into the staircase that was just outside the maelstrom that still brewed and stormed. The stairway led down, but not up, an emergency and maintenance entrance/exit for parties and other gatherings that took place in the ballroom. "This is not the type of Stand I possess."

"Oh thank god" REO sighed with relief. "So, is it safe to let him go a little?"

"I would say not!" Zeppeli said. "It's still an enemy, and above that, it is an automatic Stand."

"Automatic?" REO repeated. "What, are Stands cars now? Is my Stand some kind of flimsy gun compared to yours?"

"This Stand" Zeppeli went on, ignoring REO's brashness "can act and think on its own, away from its user's control. However, the further away the Stand is and the less direct control its user has over it, the weaker and more fragile it is. This also lessens the damage sustained by the user wherever he or she may be. It's remarkable, isn't it? This is the manifestation of a man's latent psychic abilities!"

"He must be a pussy" REO spat "if he can't even come out to do his own work." Bad Religion started stirring with increased power suddenly. Trapt was rattling and clanging loudly against itself. The Stand gave a hollow roar and tried to flex its way out of the chain by expanding its chest. It was working to a degree, but REO came swooping in with longer lengths of chain draped in his hands to tie Bad Religion up even more thoroughly. From its ankles all the way up to its face, putting a chain in its mouth for it to bite on.

"Is that wise?" Zeppeli asked, motioning to the chain in the Stand's mouth.

"That's an extra chain" REO said. "I found it on the wall over there. I'm surprised it's actually sticking in its mouth." Bad Religion was at its boiling point of rage. It bit the chain to pieces, ripped the ones on its back with a quick jerk of its neck and shattered the rest of them by releasing its deadly hidden ability: the hooks and loops in its armor shot out into spiked protrusions! REO was thrown back against the wall in the surge of power while Zeppeli stood perfectly firm in the strong supernatural wind. His cool demeanor countered the terrible essence of Bad Religion perfectly and sent the renegade Stand running down the stairs and through a locked door. Literally, straight through the solid surface.

"It's luring us away" Zeppeli said. "I doubt it is really that weak if its master were close by, but it shouldn't have been strong enough to break your chain."

"You're prescription, doc?" REO asked in a daze, his wide back wedge quite firmly into the brick wall.

"We have to decide" Zeppeli began "on whether we give chase or search for a stairwell leading up..." After a moment of preparation, Zeppeli activated his inner absolute genius and began thinking hard. REO was stuck in a daze, fixated over his broken chain and watched it slowly recover link by broken link...

* * *

"Fuck them" Eric cursed. He took a sip from an ancient soda he had kept warm by storing in a tub of warm water to keep it form being too bitterly cold. It was grape flavored, which made it in its expired and warm state taste like stale wine without the distinct drunken aftertaste. "They don't know what Bad Religion can do! He can sword-fight and fit into cramped places, he can pass through solid objects under forty degrees, he can survive and fight in the harshest cold...I hope neither of them have figured out his weakness, though. Bad Religion is a beast in the cold, but **only in the cold.** And temperature above sixty and it can't even move, like a vampire under sunlight. Or, when that happens, do vampires just disintegrate?"

Eric pondered this query while watching classical programming courtesy of stolen cable and satellite television. He let his mind wander so much that he didn't hear the phone until its second ring. Only one person knows the number for his room, and so Eric moved lazily to the phone and held the receiving end far away from his ear.

"_OH GOOOOODDDD!!!_" shouted the cowardly voice of Gerald Reach. "_I saw another one today. It-it was so evil looking! I almost fainted on the spooooot!"_

"Gerald" Eric said in a calm voice. Gerald immediately shut up and silence fell on the other line. Eric ran a hand over his slicked down hair and patted the frosty, matted surface down. Then he switched hands and rested the phone on his shoulder to feel around his horribly messy and scruffy hair. "Why are you calling me? You know I hate talking to you."

"_But you do it anyway_" Gerald defended. It was bizarre for someone as skittish as Gerald to make a stand to someone as assertive and fierce-minded as Eric. "_I need to remind you, two guys are coming by and they're friends of mine. Can you promise you won't try to fight them with Bad Religion? I know one of them uses a kind of chain, but I don't know if the other one really has a fully developed Stand quite yet._"

"Oh really?" Eric said. He knew there were two people intruding on his building right now and one of them had the capabilities of some odd heat-based power and he knew for a fact that the other used a chain. That was the only rational explanation for his intense restriction earlier where the uneven structure and contours of the binding made him specifically think of chains. However, being the man with a spirit blacker than his nails, he simply licked his lips and lied.

"I'll keep my eyes open for them" Eric said, "I garun-damn-tee it. By the way, just what was that Stand you saw today? What did it look like?"

"_It was a nightmare!"_ Gerald said. "_It was all black, blacker than black, with a smooth face that only hid a giant, gaping mouth of razor-sharp fangs!"_

"Sounds creepy" Eric said. "Where was it?" And while Eric and Gerald discussed the goings-on of the outside world, Bad Religion prepared its nefarious traps for its unwitting pursuers. It was not a smart Stand on its own, especially as far away as it was. It was able to rig up obvious traps with long threats of rope and twine that connected to piles of loud objects like cans and old tools that would fall over once the strings were pulled. The only thing it hadn't counted on was that, at this distance, all of its power including intellectual were greatly diminished, and its perceptive abilities were in the pits as well.

It had no idea that neither REO nor Zeppeli were following or trying to recapture it. They had already found an unblocked staircase and were moving to search the second floor.

"I just had an interesting thought" REO said suddenly as they entered the second level of their grozen hell. "What really happens to a vampire when sunlight hits him?"

"Ash" Zeppeli quickly answered. "I swear, Robert, you need to watch more classical cinema."

"Yeah probably" REO said lethargically. "Damn, it's so cold! What's up with the damn cold!"

"It must have something" Zeppeli began "to do with out armored friend downstairs. His abilities relate to the temperature of the air, it seems."

"So the closer he gets to his user" REO summarized "and the colder it is, the more powerful he is? I guess that means the coldest floor is the one we should be heading for, right?"

"Well they say that heat rises" Zeppeli explained "and that cold air, because it is denser, falls. That's why there is mist on the floor instead of hanging about in the air randomly. I suspect this may be the coldest floor from the saturation of the air above combined with the absence of a warmer ground below. This may be the proverbial 'arctic wing' of the building as it stands."

"So the user should be here?" REO asked.

"Why don't we find out?" Zeppeli said. He walked over to a wall, pressed his palm to the frozen wallpaper and activated his hot Sun Ripple. The wallpaper flaked off instantly, and then with a slight increase of pressure he broke straight through the wall, exposing its frosty wiring and circuitry. "This is your specialty, I believe."

"Oh yeah" REO said. He summoned his Stand into his hand and it fell apart at once. Only five links were fully intact and stable, extending just short of the tip of his hand from his wrist. "Oh...shit, that's right. I can still do it, but in this state it may take some time."

"Take as much as you like" Zeppeli said. He stood behind REO and breathed, heating the very air around him. A huge puff of mist kicked up from the frosty ground at his feet in response to the instantaneous heat and the flooring began to crack with spontaneous exfoliation. "I believe we can hold out like this for a while."

"Finally" REO said, "that's becoming useful to us!"

"Careful" Zeppeli warned.

* * *

While REO telepathically searched through the electric memory of the building, Eric was on the move for a private elevator. He was determined to stop the intruders, regardless as to who they were, and wanted to make sure his own Stand got the pleasure of spilling their blood and opening their bodies so the steam could escape.

"Fuck" Eric cursed. "Bad Religion doesn't usually fail me like this. I'll need to recall him from a close range to make sure he doesn't screw up any worse." The elevator reached its final destination, the ground floor near the ballroom, and Eric could feel his proximity to his Stand heighten his senses. "The fans are on. All of them. I guess that trap didn't quite work." After a minute of waiting for his Stand to navigate through the frigid terrain of the hotel corridors it finally reached him with an expressionless, armored face.

"And you act all smug" Eric chided. "Those bastards are getting closer to my base now! Come on, we're fighting them on the second floor. Better chance of them getting frostbite if we flood it, too. But first...I need some clothes." Eric kicked down the door to the room closest to the ballroom entrance and moved inside. "This whole building is my personal space, and I hate it when people intrude in my personal space!" Eric threw off his robe in the biting cold and opened a closet in the room. On his legs he wore expert-grade heat-gear pants, designed to cool the body during strenuous activity. On his body he wore a tank-top that tightly hugged his sinewy form which produced the same effect of air-conditioning his skin through replacement and displacement of sweat out of his body. On his neck he fastened a dog collar to accentuate his punk look and then he draped a very loose and extremely thin and faded T-shirt featuring a skull with Arabic characters carved into its forehead.

"Ready" Eric said. He took a pose with one hand sliding into the tangled, hazardous mess of hair and the other gently stroking the soft and matted side. Then he cocked his hips forward and stood on the balls of his feet, all the while leaning with his back forward so he had to look up through his lashes to see forward. Then he looked to the side and saw just how stupid he looked, resetting his pose to a normal and battle-ready one. "Shit" he cursed, "I need to work on that. I looked like a fag." Bad Religion followed him, keeping step in step until they reached the elevator where the Stand faded back into its user and both ascended along mechanically pulled cables to face down the intruders with blind, self-driven fury...


	24. Bad Religion 4

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"Got it!" REO exclaimed with relief. He detached his chain and retracted it back into his wrist.

"What's the good news?" Zeppeli asked.

"None" REO said, somehow still confident. "Just moments ago, the electricity in the breaker was transferred to a single point to work some cables in a mechanical pulley system. An elevator. Eric went down to the first floor at some point and just recently returned to the third floor. Aside form that all there are about ten rooms upstairs and here that are using up a lot of electricity, probably as cover.

"Could you get a fix" Zeppeli asked "on the room using up the most energy?"

"Not really" REO admitted. "However, the most important fact remains that he really is on the third floor, and because he had to travel down to ground level first, he must have had to retrieve his Stand manually!"

"So it is a long-range type" Zeppeli said, "but he still had to retrieve it? Because it went beyond his effective range? Odd."

"Odd how?" REO asked.

"It's completely counter-productive" Zeppeli said, making serious note of the circumstances. "Why would he need to retrieve it if it acts as a long-range Stand?"

"Maybe it got too weak" REO said "that far away from its owner all of a sudden."

"Perhaps" Zeppeli said. "In any case, we need to make haste! Our enemy is waiting just upstairs, and he has a far greater knowledge of this building than you or I do."

"Right" REO said. "Should we take the stairs or...go in from outside?"

"The stairs" Zeppeli said. "Let's go." They both made a rush down the hallway and found a door that led to a staircase. REO took the lead while Zeppeli exerted his Sun ripple the whole way. After two flights they were up at the top and in front of a new door, but a problem arose.

"Shit" REO cursed as he observed the door. The metal handle was covered in a clear-blue crust of hard, thick ice that extended all the way to the wall. "He sealed it shut."

"It is just ice" Zeppeli said flatly. "Stand aside. I can melt it easily." Zeppeli went to put his hand against the surface of the icy to melt it, but noticed that its sheen and shine had a very odd, dangerous reflection. "Wait...this isn't right. Ice doesn't behave quite like this..."

"What is it then?" REO asked?

"Stand far back" Zeppeli ordered. REO circled around and descended the steps quickly. Zeppeli followed him, keeping the strange formaion in the corner of his eye.

"What the hell?" REO asked.

"That is dry ice!" Zeppeli said in alarm. "Touching it will instantly freeze and kill skin cells. Heat can't easily melt it, either."

"So what now?" REO asked.

"I assume he has covered every door like this" Zeppeli openly mused. "We will have to break one if we want access to the third story."

"So break it!" REO exclaimed. His eyes wandered for a moment. He looked down to the door leading downstairs and saw it was open just a sliver with a short stream of mist flowing out of it. Then it shut itself with a latching clang, shaking Zeppeli's spine with shock. "If it ain't one goddamn thing...that Stand must be back!"

"I suppose this is urgent" Zeppeli said. He extended his right arm and crossed his left over it to the side. His eyes went from their normally calm and passive intellectual state to a much more fierce, much more manly furrow. "I'll have to use...**my Stand!**"

"GAH!" REO exclaimed. He was the only other Stand user, due to his close working with Zeppeli in his own family's paranormal research firm, who had ever seen Zeppeli's Stand at its full power. He recoiled and fled down the entire flight of stairs, encountering Bad Religion as it leaned out from the shadows. "FUCK OFF!" REO shouted. He coiled what he had as a chain around his fist and delivered an armor-cracking, straight punch to the Stand's jaw. Just as Zeppeli began summoning a terrible energy a figure flew against the door and cracked the ice. That figure was Eric, whose back now faced the eccentric gentleman through the window in the door.

"What the fuck was that!?" Eric shouted.

"Robert!" Zeppeli called, "What did you just do?"

"I hit this bastard" REO answered. "And I'm gonna do it again!" REO wound up his arm and knotted up a tight fist with Trapt winding around his knuckles. Bad Religion regained its composure just in time to get another solid blow to its skeletal jaw, then another and another. REO started pounding on the Stand while Zeppeli rested his energy with his hands at his hips. The ice was steadily starting to crumbled and hiss as it fell to the floor.

* * *

_Shit_ Eric painfully thought. _That chain-Stand son of a bitch isn't letting up, is he? But, his Stand is still pretty fucked up, so maybe I can command Bad Religion to fight back from this distance!_ Eric focused his internal energy on commanding his automatic Stand, which continued taking a harsh beating just below him. REO's fist was stopped in mid-punch by the cupped hands of Bad Religion, who resolved to quickly use that hard hand as a surface it could climb up. With an animistic leap it pounced from the floor and REO's had onto the wall where it clung using the folding hooks in its legs.

"HHHHHHHKKKKKKK!!!!" Bad Religion hissed. Zeppeli tilted his strange, checkerboard hat at the creature and smiled. Eric tackled the door with his own strength and sent shards of dried ice at Zeppeli. The man didn't flinch. Instead he took in a deep breath and waved his hand in the door's direction. The ice all flew straight past him and was embedded into the stone wall. Eric retreated and commanded Bad Religion to follow for now, which it did as quickly as it could but wavered slightly on its way through the air.

"As I thought" Zeppeli said smugly. REO came back up the steps with a raspy panting. His exhaustion from rapidly punching the enemy Stand with his own coupled with the freezing cold air made it difficult and almost painful to breath. Zeppeli clutched REO's throat and coursed a charge of Sun energy through it, warming and healing his trachea and soothing the air that passed through it. "I understand how to win now, Robert."

"Really?" REO asked. "How?"

"All in due time" Zeppeli said as he crunched the steamy ice beneath his leather sole. "Just follow my lead and act on my words. We will force him into submission with ease!"

"Alright" REO agreed. "Let's go." REO ran up, closely following Zeppeli as he ran into the hallway. This place was just as cold as the floor below, and twice as noisy with a constant loud humming of max-power air conditioning.

"Cold" Eric said, "isn't it?" Zeppeli and REO turned quickly to see the strange young man with his arms crossed at the farthest end of the hall.

"I need you to rush him" Zeppeli quietly instructed. "It doesn't matter if you can hit him or not, just get his attention long enough."

"Okay" REO agreed "but you're in charge of everything he breaks."

"Understood" Zeppeli said. Eric summoned Bad Religion, who came out with its heels together and arms crossed. REO began dashing forward with his chain wrapped around his right hand while Zeppeli made the motion behind him to try and stop him. "Robert! Stop! What are you doing!?"

_That's pretty cheap_ REO thought, _just a straight-up bluff. I guess I'd better act along._ REO tensed up his face and made himself look furious. "UOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH!!!!" he roared.

"Punish him" Eric ordered calmly. Bad Religion moved forward at an incredible speed, then slowed to a regular run like REO after only a few meters of rushing. Zeppeli made a careful note of this as he slowly ran forward to stop REO with an outstretched hand. Bad Religion knotted its fist and drew it back, preparing for some well-earned revenge. REO tried to stop, but ended up losing his balance on the frozen, slippery floor and slid right into a driving punch by the Stand. REO was pushed back by the first fist, then the uppercut Bad Religion stepped in to perform stunned him completely. Before the Stand could fully extend its arm-hook, Zeppeli came in and laid a palm onto its chest.

"ZUOH!" he shouted. Bad Religion wasn't just pushed back, but up into the air where it flew straight into Eric's body and vanished.

_The fuck!?_ Eric exclaimed internally. He felt dizzy all of a sudden, his Stand involuntarily returned to his body. _What was that power? Is that his Stand!?_

"Are you alright, Robert?" Zeppeli asked as he tended to the wobbling boy.

"Yeah" REO said. "Sorry I flew off the handle like that."

"Don't get within five meters" Zeppeli whispered. "It seems to be at its peak of strength within there."

"If Trapt weren't broken" REO groaned quietly "I could take this wimp from as far away as I want."

"Hope in one hand" Zeppeli quoted. "I'll charge you with my Ripple right now. Try to use the heat in your chain and spin it around as fast as you can in front of you. He's going to attack you immediately."

"Got it" REO said. He straightened up, brushed Zeppeli's hand off with a crackle of feint yellow light flickering off his shoulder, and summoned Trapt out of his wrist. The healing waves of the sun had extended his chain by several links, which would allow him to wrap it around his hand twice now.

* * *

"You fucking bastards" Eric growled. Bad Religion came out of him in an angry slouch with its spiked maw hissing. "I'm gonna chop you up and put you in my soup!"

"I ain't convinced" REO said. He began twirling his chain around his body in a flairful artistic style. It hit his bulky arms and wrapped around them, then he pulled it off and let it continue to spin quickly in a circle in front of him. _It's actually hot_ REO noticed. In his rage, Eric didn't notice the obvious difference in temperature, as the air around the chain was covered in mist. Bard Religion rushed in anyway, running as a blur for the first short five meters, then sprinting at an average pace the rest of the way with its fists wound up tight. As soon as it came close, REO stayed his ground and increased his chain spinning.

"HSSSSSSS!!!" Bad Religion hissed.

"What!?" Eric exclaimed. Bad Religion was cowering with open palms at the sight of the chain. REO smiled smugly. He let his chain whip itself around Bad Religion's neck and effectively stopped its breathing. Likewise, thanks to the slight distance between he and his Stand, Eric was able to breath through a straw-sized opening of unchanged air. The effects of a hot surface or air contacting his cold-loving Stand were obvious: they shut Bad Religion down.

_HOT!_ Eric exclaimed mentally. _Goddamn, this is hot!!! I can barely breath. My neck feels like it's wrapped in a molten-lead collar!_

"Huah!" Zeppeli shouted. Somehow, in just the brief seconds Eric was distracted, Zeppeli was able to work his way down the halls and held his fingers straight out with thumb folded in. "You may live in a frozen hell" Zeppeli said, thrusting his hand and tapping Eric on the forehead with his middle finger, "but you desperately need to chill!" Zeppeli blasted his Sun Ripple through Eric's brain and forced a warm rush of positive endorphins into his brain.

_A Stand_ REO thought as he watched Bad Religion fade away _is activated by its user's will to fight, his inner strength and determination. Without that a Stand can't be used. They're things of battle, even the most peaceful ones. If the brain has stopped acting aggressive the Stand will leave...these things are amazing!_

"Now then" Zeppeli said, hoisting the tall young Eric onto his rock-solid shoulders, "shall we take our leave?"

"What're we bringing him for!?" REO demanded. "He tried to kill us and freeze us! My lips are numb, dammit! Can't we just rough his ass up for a while first?"

"Afraid not" Zeppeli said. "This young man is a friend of an ally. Therefore, he is an ally of yours and young Johnathan."

"Speaking of which" REO said, becoming serious, "I hope he's doing alright. He was pretty damn depressed for a while there."

"He will recover" Zeppeli said positively. "He is getting caught up in his family, rather than concentrating on his own life. He assumes that because his father struggled then he must as well."

"So he's wrong?" REO asked.

"It isn't easy being him" Zeppeli said through experience. "That young man has always had an impressive spark of genius and charm. He'll pull through it, I believe in him. And, even if he has waded too far into the pools of despair, there are many people who would be willing to extend a hand to help him. He has the uncanny ability to surround himself with people he can easily call family...like you, Robert."

"Yeah" REO said hopefully. "I guess you're right." Eric groaned painfully and started to stir, but a quick bolt of Sun energy shut him up and lulled him into a comatose state of relaxation. "For now...let's get this sack to Gerald and see if he can't get his 'friend' to talk."

"Agreed" Zeppeli said, "although, I wish you'd use a more pleasant vocabulary." So the chase ended and the victory was claimed. Eric had lost, but thanks to the mercy of Zeppeli and the restraint of REO, he still lives. Will his luck continue as such, or will Gerald force his friend into even more perilous depths of danger?


	25. Frozen Nights

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

It was now evening. Zeppeli and REO conducted their business with Eric at Gerald's dorm in private, while Jojo was still left in the darkness he made for himself. He had become afraid of his power, and depressed that such power had caused him to go mad when he had worked and strove so hard against that happening. He was inconsolable, but even so, Erina refused to leave. She just stayed in the living room with Jojo's roommates while waiting for Jojo himself to come out or call her in. She was adamant on staying and would not leave until she felt she had helped him in some way...

"So Erina" Jojo's black roommate Daryl began, "what major are you studying this semester?"

"I'm in the general business supervision" Erina explained "but I'm planning on moving into stock management so I can help with my family's business after graduation."

"That's right" Jojo's other roommate with chalky-white skin, Tyler, said. "Your dad is part of a huge stock-trading firm, right? Wow. That must be a lot of pressure."

"Not really" Erina said. "I already learned most of what I need to know for the job with on-hands experience, I just need my legal degree."

"I know a guy" Daryl began "who's in that major. He said the classes are ridiculous."

"I'll manage" Erina said. Suddenly, from the hallway, a door opened with a creak. All three looked back from their seats and waited for a shadow to appear from Jojo's hall. Nothing happened. Daryl got up first but Erina got up faster and made her way for the door. A woman's touch was needed, apparently, and she would give it. "I'm going to go talk to him" she told the roommates .They nodded and sat back down patiently. A girl from a lineage like the Pendleton's wasn't one to be taken lightly. She marched into the darkness and found Jojo's door to be just slightly ajar. She peered inside and saw Jojo sitting alone in the lightless darkness of his room, clutching a pillow to his head.

_Here goes nothing_ Erina told herself. She swallowed hard and opened the door. Unknowingly, she had stepped through Jojo's Stand, **The World**, as it was hovering in front of the doorway. "John?" Erina asked. Jojo looked up with his eyes glistening, full of lifely luster but his head full of pain. "Are...you okay?"

"Yeah" Jojo replied, sounding perfectly fine. Erina sighed with relief and smiled to herself. "Ow! Owowow..." Jojo groaned suddenly. He held the pillow close to his head and reeled over himself in pain. "My head...really hurts. Can you get me some ice?"

"Of course" Erina obliged. She ran out of the room and into the kitchen. Once she was gone, The World closed the door again and hovered with its arms crossed and eyes soulless in front of Jojo.

"I can't understand" Jojo said, looking up at the unflinching Stand. "The personification of my latent mental energies, a powerful being that represents my own inner Ripple power...why do you exist like this? REO and Gerald can control their Stands perfectly, but I can't seem to draw you back into my mind. Why? And why do you insist on keeping me isolated???" The World smirked at Jojo's curiosity and moved back from Jojo to its maximum range to sit on a desk. Erina came back in with a cool pack of ice and handed it softly to Jojo.

"Here you go" she whispered.

"Thank you" Jojo said. He discarded his pillow and substituted the ice pack, which cooled his head but also gave it a sharp sting.

"Does it hurt?" Erina asked.

"It'll be fine" Jojo said. "I'm not sure what happened, but my head was just throbbing with pain. I could barely move, let alone speak."

"No" Erina said, "I mean with REO. He said that...I couldn't comprehend it even if I wanted to. That it was a secret and not my place to know...Jojo, what happened to you?" He found himself cornered, totally helpless without means of escaping her inquisitive, caring stare. If only she could see it it would be easier to explain, but the snide grin of The World only gave him the painful reminder that everything was out of his control right now, including her.

"I'm sorry" Jojo said "that I had to make you worry. Even though I'd like you to believe that I'm alright, the state I'm in will completely contradict my saying anything. You'll just have to trust me when I say that I'll be okay. I just need some time to recover on my own." Erina looked surprised. She came in with the thought that Jojo was beyond help, depressed and regretting some mysterious past deed, but here he was perfectly alright and almost pleasant, aside from this mysterious seriousness he talked with.

"Then I will" Erina said. "I trust you, Jojo. If you say nothing's wrong, I believe you." Jojo felt relieved. The World continued glaring him down from over the tip of its covered nose and case an unknown shadow across the room that faded into the darkness from the setting sun outside. Erina sat next to Jojo and smiled at him while Jojo kept his head cool with the ice and his insides warm with his controlled, Ripple breathing.

* * *

When the sun sets on one person it shall always rise at the back of another. For Dio, that sun came in the dark night. With his new regime of power and the confidence that Jojo had been locked away for quite a while with no hopes of fighting in a Stand battle, Dio decided that it was time to flex his new powers. He donned his signature garb of bright yellow pants and jacket over a black UnderArmor shirt for the cool air of the night and his pointed rubber boots. Tonight was his first stage of power as the city's most feared gang leader.

"Starski" Dio said from the shadows. The usurped gangster rose up from the couch in the den, which was now newly furnished with many stolen pieces of jewelry and smaller furniture, to meet the gaze of his dominating don. Starski's wardrobe hadn't changed save the chain that he gave up after his humiliating defeat. "Defend the headquarters while I'm gone. It's time for my raid."

"You going alone?" Starski asked. "We ain't the only Stand users in the city, you know. You ain't from around here, so let me fill you in: this city is controlled not just by us but by three major gangs. We're one of them. The other two are, well were, my rivals up til now. They're Stand users too, and they've got a lot more troops than we have!"

"But they must be weak" Dio said "for you to have risen above them before I came. Do you honestly doubt my abilities?"

"Not a damn bit" Starski answered without a second of hesitation or an ounce of fear. "I was just making sure you knew. I'll defend this place."

"Good" Dio said, stepping out into the dim light and adjusting the feathered collar of his mafioso trench coat. "I trust only you with something like that." Dio left the skeletal building and hopped down to the ground, leaving Starski to blink in the dark.

"Wait" Starski said in a panic. "Wait, I'm here by myself? I've gotta defend this whole damn place by myself!? Are you NUTS!!??"

"Rosalisa" Dio said aside to his cohort, "let's go." The girl got up, dressed in her best take on a slender Victorian dress of frilly black and stiletto boots for the coming battle She wore her hair flat to her head and tied in the back with two huge fabric black roses in her hair, as well as many smaller rose patterns on her dress as if to exaggerate her already outstanding monicker. The guards of Dio's Frozen Nights stood fast and ready, armed to the teeth with guns and bats and knives and other deadly weapons all concealed in the thick canvas fabric that made the cloaks they all wore.

"I feel a fool" one tough gangster said in his robes. He saw the tall, pasty-skinned men that Dio brought with them wearing their robes with a glowing pride. The gangster looked over at his friends drafted in from the Lovebugs and saw that they were at least feigning interest in wearing the garb, and some were honestly looking confident in the thick robes, so he silenced himself.

"Bring the cars around" Dio quietly ordered to one of his more personal guards. The man nodded and went off running. With Dio's monarchy came a resounding boost of power for the Lovebugs. The remnants of Dio's old gang and devious Underworld inhabitants, those not killed or destroyed by MUSE's efforts in his previous kingdom, were brought along with him in his pilgrimage to the place he now calls 'headquarters'. Among those remains, a fleet of stealthy rental cars stolen and redesigned from an abandoned lot just hours before the trucks came in to reclaim them for spare parts. Such cars would be the most unsuspecting for a mobster like Dio to drive in and come rampaging out of. Twelve cars in all, six minivans hollowed out for maximum troop transport and six smaller compacts for more discrete missions.

"Where are we going?" one young thug asked as he tied his coat together.

"The power station" Dio said "a few blocks downtown."

"The power station?" another thug asked. "Why the hell are we going there? Who fights at a power station?"

"We do" Dio said. "Don't question my plans." Dio's hot gaze was more than enough to silence any insubordination in the weaker ranks. Even if they acted up, he wouldn't kill them. They could die in battle for all he cared. "A spy of mine reported that several smaller gangs are going to meet there in an attempt to overthrow one of the larger ones."

"So we're gonna stop 'em?" someone asked. "Shouldn't we just, like, let 'em fight the big guys? Either way, if they all die or if they somehow win, it'll be getting rid of competition." Dio flew backwards with the wings of SoaD and grabbed the speaker by the throat with his powerful hands. Dio's face didn't change a bit from its placid neutrality, but his hand choked the breath and life out of the man. Then he reeled his arm to the side and threw the troop away like a broken toy, straight into a metal girder bolted into a concrete foundation.

"Those small gangs" Dio continued as if uninterrupted "will present us with a larger obstacle if they unite than the larger group they're going up against. If word gets out that a sort of gangster-union is forming under multiple flags, like a Mafia democracy, then all the lesser forces of the city, the petty vigilantes and thieves, will join that league and become a fourth resident power with wide-spread influence. Can anyone see why that is problematic for us?"

"So what will we do, Dio?" the youngest gangster, a homeless teenager, asked. Dio felt some striking sympathy for the kid and, rather than answer him with a brutal backhand, just smiled his gleaming charismatic smile and stunned the poor lad with his masculine beauty.

"We're going to beat them to their goal" Dio said "and **destroy that power station** before they do." Massive public property damage, the wrath of the armed forces should the incident escalate beyond control, the possibility of an anarchy or worse in lieu of a perpetual blackout; all these fears washed away when Dio looked upon his army. Even the man he nearly murdered with his powerful grip was stolen away with awe at Dio's shining beauty.

* * *

The sun was finally gone, and Dio's sun, the silver Moon, was high overhead. The time of the attack was upon the city, and a legion of miscellaneous gangsters and thugs had gathered just outside the gates of the nexus of all power for the city, the Electrical Management Plant...

"This is Red Wolf" one man said over a closed radio channel. "All signals are reading strong. My team has made their way into the complex. We are ready to engage the attack."

"This is Blue Sparrow" another man said. "We have reached out checkpoint and are inside, waiting to disengage the security."

"This is Yellow Toad" a fatter man called from a parked van. "I've hacked the channels. The security office has no idea what's going on. Operation is fucking go!"

"This is Green Snake" a girl called. "We're armed and ready. Moving to position 'G'."

"Roger that" Red Wolf said. "Commence the operation!" A cascade of events followed. The Red Wolf group had tunneled their way into the complex and came out under the main power lines, which they would cut when the power was disengaged by the Blue Sparrow team already inside disguised as workers. The Blue Sparrows began unlocking doors and stealthily taking out guards while the technically inclined Yellow Toad team kept the camera feed interrupted by looped video and the audio totally cut to cover the killings.

The Green Snake team moved into the facility through the unlocked doors with silenced guns and quieter knives. All of the members of the Green Snake team were women, all of Red Wolf's were muscular men. Yellow Toad operated from nearby locations and public terminals in the library at synchronized intervals to optimize their operations. Most of Blue Sparrow had been recruited and bribed the morning previous so they would be inside the whole day.

The quickly conglomerated mob executed their plan so fluidly, so gracefully, that all of their movements seemed predestined. All the security personnel and original workers within were dealt with in short bullet bursts and knifed backs and skulls. The first great act of the 'Pendulum Crimeforce' was going perfectly...up until **they** came.

Dio and his army arrived from half a block away, parking their cars in the cover of streetlamps where no one would care to notice and moved from there on foot. In their black garb they were invisible, not a soul on the street to point out the outlandish procession of uniformly cloaked individuals with weapons in hand. Dio himself took to a high roof a quarter of a mile away from the plant and prepared to enter from the air while Rosalisa went under heavy escort with her Stand ready to go. Her team approached a suspiciously parked van from which an even more curious hum came. Rosalisa demanded an inspection with her eyes, prompting one of the pale guards to rap on the van's doors.

_Oh shit!_ The Yellow Toad leader thought. _I've been caught! Maybe I should just wait and stay as quiet as possible._

"Shoot the door down" Rosalisa commanded. A gun was loaded with a click just outside the door. The Yellow Toad, a heavy man with tapped glasses and no particular criminal history at all, retreated to the front of the van where he had hidden a single glock pistol in case of an emergency. Now was that emergency. Two quiet, silenced bullets were fired and dented the area around the handles of the van doors. Then the guards snapped those doors off with quick-fingered wrench and screwdriver skills. Rosalisa entered alone and looked around.

"Call Lord Dio" she ordered. "Tell him we are ahead of schedule."

"Who's Dio?" the fat man asked, holding his pistol up to Rosalisa's head. The guard aimed their guns up reflexively but had no intention of shooting the man. They knew he was already dead. He still wrapped his arm around Rosalisa and attempted to use her as a human shield while he made his way for his computer-array console. "Nobody move! Just step away form my vehicle! And don't even fucking think about calling this 'Dio' guy!"

"Do what he says" one of the guards said. The stepped away and even lowered their weapons as they did.

"That's right" the man growled. "Don't fuck with me!" _Wow! Look at me!_ He thought with great amusement. _I'm like...like Tony Soprano, or something! I went from being an ordinary computer technician and programmer to a bad-ass mob-man!_ It was now that he noticed Rosalisa had calmly broken her arms free his his grip and pulled out a small, black notebook and pen from the folds of her dress. "What're you doing!?"

"Do you have any daughters?" Rosalisa asked. "If you did, you would know the seriousness girl's hold when they have a diary and that privacy is second to none when they are writing in it. Please, do not look while I write or I will become cross."

"You're a hostage!" the man shouted. "You don't get to tell me what to do! Besides, what're you gonna write about, huh? How scared you are! Hehehe..." The man went to aim his gun at her head again but, strangely, he couldn't. He peeked over her shoulder and saw that she was writing some peculiar orders in her book.

_He aims the gun at himself and_ she had written. The man couldn't help but think it was crazy until he felt the cold metal at his temple and heard the barrel hammer click next to his ear.

"Dear Diary" Rosalisa narrated as her guards fearlessly drew up their arms. "Today I killed a man..." One loud gunshot later it was over. The man behind her shot himself straight through the head without a flashing moment of second thought. Rosalisa closed her book, ending the entry with the words _and shoots the gun, killing himself instantly._ She closed the book and placed it back within the folds of her dress while she tucked the pen in her tight bosom. "Take this over and contact Lord Dio at once" she ordered of her troops. "I will be moving ahead of schedule..." Rosalisa has escaped harm's way by means of her Stand, but just exactly how!?


	26. Dark King Rising

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"Understood" Dio said into his cell. "Maintain a safe distance from the lines. I'm going to take them out." He closed the stolen phone and threw it into an alley behind him. He summoned his demonic Stand, blacker than the dark night sky with a crown of vertically set eyes, the fearsome 'System of a Down'! With its arms folded up into bat-like wings Dio jumped up and rode through the air over the rooftops to intercept the Red Wolves. Meanwhile, at the defeated Yellow Toad van, Rosalisa stepped daintily out with the remnants of a phone crushed in her hand.

"We shall move" she said to her guards. They split up, two staying with her as she ran across the street. The guards who split from the group made encrypted radio transmissions to the guards ready to enter the building with guns blazing and knives glaring.

"We've got a problem" the Blue Sparrow leader communed to her troops inside. "Another gang is trying to stop us. They've already killed the Yellow Toad leader! I saw them shoot him through the two-way monitor we set up."

"Did you mistrust him that much?" the Red Wolf leader asked.

"Green Snakes" Sparrow began again, "move in as quickly as you can. We're opening all the doors and security stations for you now!" At that command the entire facility went black. The lights were shut off and the killers and soldiers of Green Snake activated their tri-lens night-vision goggles.

"I thought we weren't at this stage yet" a Green Snake fighter said. A large group of them were moving through the halls and running on the catwalks of the facility, taking out the fleeing or advancing blind security guards. As they ran through the facility and came up to a divide in the hallway. One path led straight and the other led right.

"This is forward Sigma" the leader of the group said in her earpiece. "We have reached point 'R'. What are our directions?" Silence on the other end. "Come in Viper. What are our orders?" Stillness, a deadly crackle of static and hiss of passing air from her headquarters. The body of a young woman in a business outfit would be found the next morning, curtosy of Dio's elite guards who traced the her communications with the rest of the group from the Yellow Toad van to hunt and kill her.

"She's not answering" another girl said.

"Stay alert" the leader ordered. "Keep eyes on our six. Guns forward. Stay tight. Let's go straight here, come on!" With their new orders the girls started moving through the darkness, unaware of the dangers that lie waiting.

"On" a voice whispered harshly. The lights came on in a blinding flash that stunned and stopped the Sigma group dead in their tracks. From the forking pathway that they chose to ignore came a squad of the Frozen Nights, armed with machetes which stabbed into the backs of their enemies and silenced pistols that made even quicker work of the girls. Once the bodies were neatly spread in the hallway and propped against the wall, the leader with wide, armored shoulders under his robes, waved his hand at another solider. "Off" he said, and the darkness came again.

"We're getting reports" a Blue Sparrow spy said "that the Green Vipers are getting killed all throughout the station."

"That sounds bad" the man said. Working from a hotel room, this middle-aged embezzlement-charge dodger and general white-collar criminal, the Blue Sparrow who managed the majority of the operations himself cupped his chin and mouth at the stark possibility of failure. _Calm down, Seymour. You've handled tougher shit than this. This is simple breaking-and-entering with a little bit of illegal manipulation of government devices. It shouldn't be that hard. I'm not even indirectly responsible for the murders! What could be going so wrong?_ A knock at his door startled him nearly out of his seat.

"Mr. Seymour?" a sweet Latina voice called. "Would you like your laundry now?"

"No thank you" Seymour called back. "I'll just leave it in a bag outside my door for you when it's ready!"

"No, no sir" the maid called again. "I mean, the laundry from this morning! I have it ready for you!"

"All units" he said quietly into his microphone on his desk, "maintain high alert. Kill anyone outside our allied units. We can't afford mass casualties."

"Understood" one of his spies called back. Seymour closed the windows of communication on his laptop and went over with an exasperated sigh to open the door.

* * *

_It'll only take a second_ he thought. _Then she'll be out of my hair!_ He opened the door to the most beautiful face of a Latina woman he had ever seen. A supple bust and finely crafted hips leading into long, slender legs. A face with pouting lips and long lashes that batted her dark, seductive eyes. Long, dark, curly hair reaching to her waist that smelled even from the door like a fresh desert rain. A gorgeous vision of hospitality and beauty in a blue and white maid's outfit.

"Come in" Seymour said hypnotically. She obliged and paced in, swaggering her step with a bag in hand. She took his clothes out from the bag and spread them on his bed, making sure the wrinkles were all out like a good maid. Seymour stealthily closed and locked his door.

_So long as she's here_ Seymour thought with a greedy snarl, _I may as well take good advantage of my stolen Penthouse fare for this room and service! The mission will go on with or without me. Red Wolf and the rest of the Green Snakes can take care of the dirty business..._ With a lecherous grin he lunged forward and grabbed the maid's buxom breasts and supple hips, breathing into her ears.

"Ay, sir!" she exclaimed lustfully. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry" Seymour said "but I honestly can't help it! Who could?"

"Oh, you naughty man!" she moaned. She started grinding her hips into him and he started licking and kissing her neck. "_Si_, like that. It's good!" His passion went uninterrupted, but hers was only an act. She reached up into her skirt and retrieved a syringe full of some evil green liquid. She made a loud, sensual moan and arched her back up as both of his hands migrated to her chest. He played with her breasts like a child and suckled on her neck, forcing more staged moans and groans out of her mouth. Upon seeing the computer on the desk in the corner, she acted, and stabbed the syringe into his side. Then as he froze up in terror she injected the mystery venom straight into his liver. His eyes went white as he let go and staggered helplessly, unable to breath.

"Mmmhmhmhmhmm!" she giggled coyly. She took the choker from he neck and ripped it off, revealing a bulge and making her laugh much deeper and infinitely more sinister. Seymour died to the cackling mad laughter of a man as the disguised assassin rang out a low chorus of "HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Now the body was completely still on the floor, a waxy foam dripping from his mouth. The scene was a perpetually-mystified closed-door murder. No maids were registered as taking his laundry up to his room or being on that floor at such an hour of night. The assassin took of the wig of curls and the cap to hide his real, shorter black hair. He paced over to the computer, propped up the microphone, activated the proper system to speak to the entire mass of criminals and declared the following message.

"All hail" said the resonating, deep voice, "the Frozen Nights!" The radios clicked off after that and gave way to loud static. The spies and troops alike were shocked that their entire structure of leaders had been dispatched so quickly. Rosalisa heard the message as well from the microphone she had stolen from the disembodied head of one of her victims. She threw the piece down and clutched her little notebook tight in her chest.

"All hail" she whispered. The bloody hall she stood in went black from the power surge initiated by the last remaining Pendulum warrior, and the power lines outside were deactivated...

* * *

"Everything" Dio said as he slowly lowered himself onto the powerless lines in the black city-scape "is going swimmingly." Dio looked down and saw what looked to him like a dog wrenching its body out of a hole it had dug for itself to squeeze under the fence. His egotistic observation wasn't too far off. The Red Wolves made their way into the compound from the ground with bludgeoning tools and pocketed Swiss-army tools to cut down the wires atop the tall mast of meshed metal bars.

"I'll go up first" one rugged, black man said "and make sure the power's off."

"It looks off from here" another man said.

"Don't be fooled" the Red Wolf, a man in red war-paint and a green beret warned. "Even if the main power has been disengaged, some auxiliary power may still be in the lines, in which case we could die trying to cut them." The previous marine put his knife in his mouth and pumped his arm with a thumb up, signaling that he would ascend now. The men gave him a brief salute, then took cover behind and against some silent electrical monitoring devices on the ground.

"Are there more enemies out here" one man said fearfully "than we thought?"

"Who knows" the leader said. "This plan is essentially one huge front against the three biggest gangs in the city. The Lovebugs, the Electro-Orgy, and the biggest one the Syndicate of Stellar Sin. SSS is going to be the biggest obstacle for any of the gangs to overcome, let alone the Pendulums."

"At least we have back-up" one of the younger men said. "Those other groups that are with us can do this job twice as fast without us, I'm betting. I still don't know how we got them to go along with us."

"Give a crackhead crack" Red said "and he'll tap-dance on the spot. All they wanted was drugs, for profit or for personal gain, and that's fortunately what the Snakes and Sparrows had plenty of. Toad was even able to steal a couple kilos of crack by rerouting the delivery cars to the docks and stealing it with some nerds strapped with contraband arms."

"Well" the young man said "at least he helped us out before he died."

"This is a gang" Red said. "You can't be expected to live long if your living to break the law. Getting caught at any time could get us sent to jail for life or outright killed. If we aren't alert something will come up and get us all killed, especially if we aren't watching our sides, so stay tight and keep lookout, all of you!"

"Yes sir" the group said in a hush. They all leaned out from cover with guns armed and aimed down the utterly dark expanse of grass and concrete before them. Fenced off areas where huge electrical boxes were stored made a straightforward maze on their side of the compound. Low hanging wires that ran form major box to box dangle overhead in the windless city air and a stagnant gray swept over their vision completely.

"It's almost creepy" the younger one said, again drawing unwanted attention to himself.

"What's taking Bruce so long?" Red asked. "Someone with a scope, check it out." A marine wearing a modified ATV helmet took his short-barreled assault-augmented rifle and looked through the combat scope to see the man named Bruce making his way from the metal of the tower's peak to the metal of the wire as carefully and cautiously as an ex-marine would.

"He's just now getting there" the soldier reported.

"Is anyone else in there alive?" Red asked into his earpiece. He got no response save for the silent hiss of the countless open channels from decapitated heads.

"Help" one strained, painful voice finally called.

"Color?" Red asked, demanding proper protocol.

"They were everywhere" the voice whined. "Everyone...dead...they were demons!...They killed us all!"

"Who?" Red asked. "Who were they?"

"**We**" every open channel called in a cacophony of different voices and dialects "**are the Frozen Nights. We are the end of times. We are the strongest army! We are an unstoppable force! We are the icy ghosts of pure murder!**"

"Who are they...?" Red wondered out loud. He knew the life of that soldier would be quickly drained, and so he disengaged the channel and threw the earpiece to the ground with a scowl. "Where's Bruce!?" he shouted.

"Gone" the man with the scope said.

"What!?" Red yelled.

"He's just...gone now" the man clearly reported.

"What the hell is going on?" Red lowed. "Is he climbing down? Is he walking on them like tightropes? Did he fall? Is he dead!?"

"Yes!" the young man exclaimed, pointing out of cover down the alley of fenced-in boxes. Hanging from one of the wires was the body of Bruce, a noose hung around his neck and tied to the metal cable above. He had multiple stab wounds in his gut and his eyes had been slashed by some unknown blade. The Wolves began slowly moving out of cover from fear, but Red stayed safely behind his cover out of the experience of his training.

* * *

"Back to cover!" he ordered. Instantly, the troops returned to their positions, all but that one mouthy young man. "soldier, back to position!" Red demanded. After a moment without movement, the young man finally fell over backwards, his head hitting his chest as it rolled down without a neck to hold it.

"Hmhehahaha..." laughed a handsome man's voice. The soldiers aimed their guns past the dead body but found nothing. Then a loud thud as a living person landed hard on the ground very close to Red. His combative instincts flared up a storm in his mind and he rolled away, leaping over another box to evade an invisible attack that ripped apart the metal of the box he was just behind.

"Retreat!" Red ordered. The mystery figure made another explosive jump and landed in front of the fleeing band, instantly decapitating the man closest to him while Red rolled away and the whole company engaged fire.

"...Useless..." the man said. The bullets whizzed through the air straight at him with the aim that only a group of marines could harbor, but none of them hit. They all simply impacted off the air in front of him and fell to the ground. "All of your effort...is **useless against me!**" So said Dio, the villain supreme, who shielded himself with SoaD's mighty wings folded over in front of him like a shield. Red sensed something wrong in the air, some arcane power manipulating the fabric of the reality around him.

_How many freaks are there gonna be!?_ He mentally exclaimed. Something was indeed stirring beyond the air, but Dio didn't know it...


	27. Smoke on the Water 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

"Don't hesitate" the Red Wolf leader ordered. Dio smirked at their ignorance and stood firm. "Kill this bitch!" Guns rattled with loud fire. The silencers were off, all stealth had been abandoned for power. As the bullets came flying at Dio, SoaD came to the defense with its wings folded out in front, stopping the bullets mid-motion.

"Let me tell you" Dio began as he walked forward "a little something about life." The company began to retreat, treating Dio like a a walking biohazard and barely breathed his air. One man froze up and Dio marched straight up to him. "Life is fragile. With just one push, a man can be sent hurdling into oblivion and meet his untimely death." Dio grabbed the man's face and pressed hard, grinding the joints of his jaw into his skull. The others looked on with horror, some still shot past their comrade at Dio. SoaD kept its wall up. "We all walk the razor's edge in this world, wondering when and where we are going to die. Few are so lucky to know the exact date of their death so they can plan around it." Dio took out a shaving razor, and old-fashioned flip blade razor from his jacket pocket, and turned it on the man's throat.

"Aren't you lucky" Dio said in a low voice. He pressed the razor against the man's throat and relaxed his gripping hand. "You know when and where and how you will die already, don't you?" The man began to cry and struggle. His breath stopped short as Dio slashed his razor blade and severed the man's throat. Blood sprayed out from his neck and Dio, being the arrogant and proud man he was, kicked the body away and let the feeble head bob around as the man gave out his final gurgling cries of pain. Dio looked to his undershirt and wiped away a splash of blood. It soaked straight through to his skin and he felt the annoying chill of his wet clothes. Then, with glowing-whit eyes he looked up.

"Look at what he's done" Dio said to the others. He lowered his head to glare through his lashes and bared his teeth, glaring like the fangs of a demon in the night air. "Who's going to pay the penance of my shirt!?" The men began to panic and ran away screaming. Red Wolf led the pack with an adamant drive, stern and collected, fearless of the doom approaching.

_This guy_ Red began _is no ordinary human. The man he killed was a green beret, a man who faced corporal punishment for betrayal and murder in the army, and who escaped several successive manhunts only to fake his own death! He froze up like a timid deer in a truck's headlights when that man came close and let himself die!_ Dio landed right in the Red Wolves path, arms crossed and feet together, looking down at the man equal to his height.

"Where do you think you're going?" Dio asked in a growl. Red Wolf backed away and took out his gun. Dio reached into his pocket and threw his arm up above his head, three glimmering sparkles flying out of his hand. Those sparkles became knives embedded into the foreheads of three unprepared men who fell and died.

"Kill him!" Red commanded. "I don't give a shit how!"

"It's useless, you know" Dio said as he began marching forward. Red kept his distance, knowing something terrible would happen if he got too close. He stealthily retreived a grenade from his satchel on his waist and threw it at Dio. SoaD caught it and handed it to its master. "You didn't even pull the pin on it. What a joke." Suddenly the pin was pulled. Dio wasn't holding down on the lever, either, so the grenade began its immediate countdown. Red had attached strings to his grenades so he could pull out the pins while the string would press down on the lever, allowing the pin to be released. Dio glared at the live explosive and tossed it away into the air.

_He's in a panic now_ Red thought. _Now's my time to attack._ The grenade detonated overhead. To men who had lived lives centered around surviving explosions just over their heads the shock was nothing, but Dio hadn't thrown it as carelessly as they thought. The metal boxes around them had been shaken and large panels were knocked loose. "Shit!" Red shouted. "Full retreat!"

"That won't work!" a soldier shouted.

"It's better than staying here" Red said. "GO!" The men all ran away from Dio as the boxes blasted out their walls. One man got hit as he was running and his head was smashed against the concrete foundation the boxes were built on. Once the electric crackling died down Dio stepped over and put the hurt man out of his misery, using SoaD's foot to crush his skull against the hard surface.

"Your lives are worthless" Dio said. He looked over to see the remainder of the Red Wolves mobilizing into the building and smiled. "I could chase them down, or I could simply wait for Rosalisa to find them and kill them herself. Whatever I do, it's all going to go to the same end. This building is going to go down one way or another..." Dio began running for the still open door, but as the last of the wolves mobilized inside they shut and locked the door. Dio just smiled at their simplicity and summoned his Stand to rip the door apart. Three slashes and fifteen deep cuts into the metal later, Dio kicked down the broken door and stepped into the cold hallway. It was pitch black inside, but he could still sense the life of the manic soldiers as they ran around.

"How fun" Dio said. "Playing tag in the dark is very suspenseful!" Dio started running forward, but somehow he just ran right back outside. He looked around in confusion and felt a swimming sickness in his brain. _What the hell...could it be that one of them is a Stand user?_

"So" a deep, booming voice called out from the air, "you're not completely invincible after all, are you?"

"Who's there?" Dio demanded. "Where are you, bastard!"

"I'm right here, of course" the voice said again. Dio saw nothing but empty air where the voice was coming from, but an instant later that air was filled with a tall and slender human figure. The shock made Dio jump back and instinctively he summoned his Stand. The man was covered in an odd type of leather that was green and blue from what Dio could see. It was layered on him like the wrappings of a mummy, tightly clinging and some strands loosely hanging around his legs and arms. His head was likewise covered in these wrappings, randomly thrown together in no discernible pattern, two small cats-eye yellow lenses over his eyes. Small white triangles outlined in black were marked on the strands on his head, all of them pointing towards the center of his face.

"What are you?" Dio asked.

"My name is **Trip**" the mystery man said with his arms crossed and feet together, obviously imitating Dio's previous cocky pose. "Just Trip. I was sent here to scout out the actions of the new gang, but instead I found another Stand user."

"So" Dio said, "it was you."

"That's right" Trip said. "Now, shall we have some fun?"

* * *

The final stand of the remaining Pendulum Crime Force was drawing to its close. The Snakes and Sparrows were hanging on by a thread, all huddled into the same hallway. Only eleven of them in total remained. The Yellow Toad faction had been wiped out, caught in the act of government website hacking in various public locations. Unfortunately, some of those hackers were caught by the guard of the Frozen Nights and were never gathered up by the authorities. At least, not whole. The building was dead quiet, as the remaining freedom fighters wanted to hear their death coming from whatever angle. Their guns were armed and their knives were unfolded, ready to fight off whatever came their way.

_This is terrifying_ one of them thought. _I can't even gulp out of fear here, it would make too loud a sound!_ The darkness began to crawl into the eyes of the soldiers. Their paranoia was making the shadows move, but when they blinked the shadows reset and began slowly moving once again. Their eyes had been in the total darkness for too long and were adjusting to it.

_Something's coming_ someone else thought. _I just know it. I know it! Something is coming around that corner, right now, to kill us!_ Suddenly the lights came on, blinding everyone and forcing their eyes to close.

"What the fuck!?" someone shouted.

"Quiet!" another harshly whispered. "They could find us!"

"........" the darkness spoke. The distant, feint voice of a young woman who patrolled the halls started coming in, very very softly at first and then just softly after. "He was French, I believe, to some extent. It was a shame that he was so single-minded, else he would have made such a wonderful friend. I dare admit that I am cursed with this strength. All that I write becomes a terrible prophecy, and the blood that drips from the ceiling stains my beautiful pages of virgin-white paper. Such depressing thoughts..."

"Who's that?" someone whispered.

"What's she talking about?" another asked.

"Murder" a girl said. "She's being real carefree about it, too. I was a poetry major in college. I know the subtle hints of soul-purging confession when I hear it, but she's talking as if she's talking to someone or narrating a diary entry."

"What part" one angered spy began in an angry hush "of 'shut the fuck up' do you twisted bitches not fucking understand!?"

"You shut up" the girl said. Finally, the heel-toe clicks stopped and a girl in frilly Gothic black garb with her hair up like some kind of flower.

"Oh look" she said in a distant, emotionless voice. "More of them lying around."

_Maybe_ one frightened fighter thought _if I just sit perfectly still and play dead...she'll leave me alone?_

"Such indiscretion" the girl continued, holding up a small, leather-bound book. "I shall write about this promptly." From out of her back came a horrible energy. Rosalisa unleashed her Stand as she wrote some politely curved words in her little book.

_Kill them_ she wrote in command _**Evanescence**_. The energy finally finished warping, and her Stand was formed with her black-gloved arms outstretched. A life-size Gothic-Lolita doll all dressed up in a Victorian gown sewn with black roses. The joints of her shoulders and elbows had visibly rusted metallic parts, as did the crease in the bottom of her neck. It was almost identical in terms of proportions to its user but with an endless flowing dress of petals instead of legs. Her pure-white face was blocked from the nose up by a pitch-black covering that curved down and framed her jaw so nicely. Her head didn't end normally, but opened up like a flower with a myriad of petals. Her lips were full and pouting, a normal woman's face from that black cover downward, but still she resonated with that evil energy of a Stand.

"She's just a girl!" one of the Sparrows shouted. "I say we kill her!" He raised up a gun. Evanescence threw her arm forward and pointed with her index finger, which zoomed out and flattened as it flew, like paper. The paper wrapped around the man's brain and the words from Rosalisa's notebook flew off the page, onto her Stand's paper finger, and into his brain.

_Kill_ was all he thought. _Kill_ was the only word in his mind. _Kill_ was so loud that he went almost instantly mad, and to silence the word, he **killed** himself with a bullet to the brain.

"Dear Diary" Rosalisa began as Evanescence pointed both hands forward. "This world is full of such humdrum people and places..." The fingers flew out, coiling around the skulls of the remaining soldiers and forcing the polite words to echo endlessly into the maddening hollows of their brains. "I wish I could see more and hear about more interesting people and places than the ones I already do. My life is so very dull..." Although she spoke her thoughts, her words were scathingly graphic commands.

She wrote for one girl to pull her hair out by the roots and choke on it to die. She wrote for one man to chop off his genitals but he passed out from pain halfway through. One man would bash his head against the hard, metal ground until it leaked out gray matter, one man would slit his throat vertically and swallow his knife...Such brutality brought on by the smiling demon and her emotionless user below...

"**If only I were dead...**" she finally thought. With her thoughts recorded and her enemies slaughtered in a horrific manner, Rosalisa closed her book and stuffed it back into her hidden pocket. Evanescence vanished behind her, and she began walking away, unimpressed with the mess she had written...

* * *

While Dio fought and Rosalisa massacred, Starski was left alone at the base to watch late-night television. _Nighttime at the Apollo _was on, and Starski was laughing raucously at the antics of the stand up featured.

"KAHAHAHAHA!!!" he laughed. "AHA! Oh, man! These guys are funny as hell! Ha! I've got to try and get some tickets for this when I go to New York! Man, this shit's funny! HA! AHAHA!!!" And while Starski laughed, sinister forces moved out to attack the Frozen Nights at their source. First, they cut the power lines coming into the construction compound, silencing Starski's entertainment and darkening his lights. "What the fuck!?"

Then they mobilized. Two teams of well over twenty troops each. One team was the White Doves, a hodgepodge of crazed, dysfunctional former members of society. Crackheads, heroin addicts, speed freaks, men and women from former mental asylums, all of them totally insane and full of berserk energy. Their uniforms were straightjackets, sports jackets, padded pants, leather chaps; anything under the sky but all that they wore was dyed miraculously white. Their leader, a man who was known only as Dove for his pure white skin, hair and eyes, led the pack with his enlarged cranium and thin hair, below which was a gentle face with dark-circled eyes.

The second group was the Black Widows. Former spies and miscellaneous terrorists, a women's only club of hellions and villains from as far away as Japan. All of them wore identical black leather unitards with a slit down the middle, exposing the inner curves of their breasts down past their midriffs. Their leader had her hair wildly styled out in large, dangerous spikes and had a supple, Russian face. Her bloody red lips stood out against her foundation-plastered skin, making her look vampiric.

"Target sighted" the Black Widow said in her light, seductive Russian accent. "Begin the assault at once!"

"We are all children" Dove began with his arms out "of the one true God, and his name is Jesus Herman Christ!"

"FOR HERMAN!" one totally random crack-head screamed. It began running forward, its gender indistinguishable from the years of drug abuse, screeching all the way. Starski kicked open the door with his Stand summoned and delivered a concentrated blast of air, sending the noisy freak tumbling away until it hit its head off a metal girder and made no more sounds.

"Who the hell" Starski began roughly "pulled the plug on my TV!?!?" That's when he saw the two armies. Maniacs in white, armed to their yellow, jagged teeth with shanks and shivs, and the succubi in black with whips, swords and a variety of guns. "Ohhh..." Starski shuddered angrily. He pounded his fists together and Run DMC stood at his side, mirroring his pose. "Oh, you've all just bought yourselves a ticket! First class on **FUCK YOU AIRLIIIIINES!!!!**" Starski took his job seriously, regardless what that job was, and with a powerful pride that only the centuries of oppression and differential treatment could create. He was ready to kill and kill and kill with his Stand, seeing none in the crowd, all unwittingly fighting for the glory of his despicable lord Dio.


	28. Smoke on the Water 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Dio and Trip stood off against each other under the powerful electrical wire tower. Dio's glare could melt ice and vaporize water, his gaze reaching across the ground between he and his enemy, Trip, whose face was covered in such strange wrappings. Suddenly Dio attacked, throwing knives from his pockets just as Trip vanished into thin air.

"I'm over here" Trip announced. Dio turned to see him in the same pose on the top of the fence that bordered the power boxes beside the main building. "Are your eyes okay?" Trip wound up to make a punch, then ran, on the air, at Dio. Dio retreated with short hops but Trip somehow caught up to him and gave him a straight right and then a fast left jab, both to his face. Dio made painful grunts as the punches landed, but fought back. He swung down with his right arm to grab Trip's arm and then kicked, but Trip vanished once again.

_Teleportation?_ Dio thought. _No, he was running on air just now. Teleportation is far too convenient. High speed movement isn't unreasonable...but something still seems off about him right now. It's like my eyes aren't being faithful anymore. Perhaps its a byproduct of his bizarre outfit..._

"You're thinking" Trip began, standing in the middle of the open grounds, "that this illusion has something to do with my outfit, right?" Dio's shocked expression gave way to his admission. He ordered more knives from SoaD and threw them at Trip, who vanished and reappeared closer than before. "I can't read minds, of course, but that's what people always think." Dio picked up a fragment of metal from the ground and pitched it at Trip. The scrap flew straight through his body, as if it weren't there, and landed on the ground with a crash. "Oh, that hurt" Trip said sarcastically. Dio smirked and started laughing.

"Hu...huhuhu...HAHAHAHAA!!!!" Dio's roaring, mad laughter caused Trip to shift away and teleport several steps back. "So I can't hit you, can I? Not with mere knives, right!?" Dio started walking towards one of the four support legs of the electrical tower, then leaned against it. From his arm the darkness crawled and the snapping fangs of SoaD erupted out to devour the metal bars. The tower creaked dangerously and Dio advanced once more, this time to the leg closest to Trip. Without those two legs the tower would fall away from the building and smash through the gate and nearly into the building bordering the plant itself. Trip realized that such an act posed no real threat to him so he advanced fearlessly to attack. Dio stopped and glared out the side of his eye, and SoaD gave a shrill roar as it started stabbing rapidly with its sharp claws.

_**WRAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!**_ it screamed. Trip simply let the claws go through him, as his physical body was impervious to pain, and he came in to attack Dio. In the instant his fist was swung Dio saw a sparkling of rough-cut diamonds and the light that blasted off of them. SoaD stopped short of its assault and grabbed the fist. It was a fist of foggy and pearly white with diamond studded knuckles. The arm of a Stand. Trip retreated and brought the full form of his Stand with him, running behind a power box. Dio faced his direction and summoned knives from SoaD's mouth.

"Just a few more tests" Dio said "and I'll know your power!"

"And what good will that do you?" Trip asked. "Even if you know my power, you couldn't stop me with yours. Your Stand is far too weak, even if it can fly, to face mine in true combat."

"We'll see" Dio growled. He summoned more knives and threw them all at the box where Trip had hidden, all the while advancing to the leg of the tower. The knives sank into the thin metal covering of the box, letting out brief crackles of electric energy from the frayed wires inside the flimsy covering. "They don't use hard enough metal in these things! What an embarrassment!" Before Dio could continue laughing Trip reappeared with his shimmering Stand drawing its arm back behind him. "Back again?"

"I never left" Trip said. Trip's Stand punched quickly with both arms, both of them identically thick and clear like crystal. Dio used SoaD's wings and arms to block but an unseen kick sent him tumbling across the base of the tower and right next to the leg opposite the one he already ripped apart. Then Dio smiled again, with his infinite malice pouring into the open air. SoaD reeled its neck up and folded its wings back in, then chomped away at the thick metal beams. The tower was standing on only two legs and supported itself barely by the wires still attached to its top.

The beams of the rear leg started to groan with bending. Trip attempted to retreat again, but the knives Dio made were as swift and fast as they were dangerous. He threw a cluster of them in Trip's general direction. Trip looked back and saw the knives, dodging into one and letting it pass through him. Then the metal Dio threw earlier clacked and Trip looked down. The knives didn't pass over it, and Dio saw through the power of Trip's Stand.

"I see" Dio said. "How could you assume such tricks would hold me off long enough for you to seriously kill me?"

"Maybe I don't want to kill you" Trip answered, standing still on top of the scrap he had stepped on. "Maybe I jut wanted to see what I may be up against later in my career..."

* * *

Trip's Stand stood beside him, just as high as its user and adorned with the shining, glaring reflective surfaces of crystal and diamond. It's body was cut from some arcane, translucent, crystalline material. Its arms were larger than Trip's and its chest was wider. Its head had a pyramid-patterned helmet of reflective mirrors, forming a sort of diamond atop its head. Its eyes were round goggles with jewel pattern lenses, like a bug's eyes. It had no other features on its face as it was quite literally cut from what seemed to be a dim-blue type of crystal.

At its waist was a pleated gladiatorial skirt of reflective red and on its feet were smooth, curved legguards. It's powers were obvious to Dio, but how exactly they worked were still slightly beyond him. This was a Stand of **mirrors,** allowing its user to reflect his image where ever and however he deemed fit. He could bend and reflect and refract light in ways only a Stand could, making its user or anything else in the environment seem invisible as no light would be hitting it. It's powers could disorient people by changing the regular patterns of colors from their surroundings.

"This is my Stand" Trip announced, "**Smoke on the Water.** It is the reason that I am an immortal soldier of fortune, a man who has never been caught by his numerous enemies and who can only be found where it benefits him directly to be. No one can rival my ability to move undetected and nobody can catch me!"

"Oh really?" Dio asked. He made a fast break for the one remaining leg, the one that if broken would totally topple the tower in Trip's direction, and Trip advanced as well. Using Smoke on the Water (hereafter referred to as SotW) Trip manipulated the light and caused Dio's vision to shift. Instead of the light reflecting off the metal Trip made it all disappear and Dio was tossed carelessly into an illusion without direct light. It all swarmed randomly around him in a psychedelic blur of disturbing colors and patterns. Dip held his brains from exploding from his fractured mind and breathed in deep to roar.

"HAAAAAAAA!" Dio shouted. "Don't make me laugh! This is nothing!!!" SoaD came out and began snapping its jagged jaws in every direction like a mad, blind dog on the attack. Trip saw his actions and quickly corrected his vision, causing disorientation as Dio was thrown instantly back into a normal view of the world around him. He staggered around and grabbed onto some loudly creaking, bending metal, knowing just what it was, and then grinned with his mad glaring eyes glowing white in the darkness.

"**WRYYYYYYYY!!!!!**" Dio roared. SoaD reached its powerful jaws into the metal and pit it all out, spitting out molten steel that formed into twisted, curling knives in Dio's curled fingers. Mad with rage and ecstasy of his successful plan, Dio threw his myriad of knives in all directions hoping to at least make Trip stumble. SotW made Trip disappear yet again, and he was thrown into a strange world where all light became black and the reflections of objects came back to his eyes in inverted colors. Blues were reds, green was brown, yellow turned violet; a chaotic world that only Trip seemed to understand.

The knives, flashing silver and black, came at him and he easily dodged them, but the main problem was overhead. The tower was falling towards him, and Dio was retreating away in the only safe direction. Trip knew Dio's plan and saw himself stepping into it, an unwitting pawn finally lured by the king into a court of terrible knights and rooks. Dio moved to the side, into the most open space of dead and dying grass, to the right of the falling tower. Trip moved the same way but stayed invisible until he was sure he was out of the destructive range.

"No matter how powerful" Dio said "your Stand may be, it is all useless! I can still find you! There is enough metal here for me to stock a cutlery with knives! SoaD can fashion any amount of metal into lethal razor-sharp knives! My armory is limitless! **FACE IT! YOU'RE FUCKED!!! HAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!"**

_I hate guys_ Trip thought _who are so full of themselves that they declare victory while I'm still alive. He still doesn't grasp the full power of my Stand._ Trip clenched his fist and flicked his wrist out. Three tiny darts coated in some foreign substance came out from the wrappings on his wrist and were held between his fingers. Trip vanished as the tower came crashing down and the power throughout the city surged in bright, pulsing flashes. Dio looked at the chaos in triumph, then he turned back to the battlefield of signs of Trip. Dust was still kicking up from the blast of wind the tower made. Dio beat it back with the wings of his demon and waited with his arms crossed.

"You can't hit me" Trip said. Dio turned to the voice, large and booming, and saw Trip beyond the tower. His form in its entirety was reflected on the blank wall of the power station. "You can't even tell where I am anymore, can you?"

"So" Dio said "it's not just light. You can reflect anything you want, including sound!"

"Right on" Trip said, his voice echoing all around Dio. The cavernous effect faded away after a moment of constant noise and Dio smiled.

"How interesting" Dio lowed. "And you say you're a mercenary?"

"That's right" Trip said, vanishing from the wall. Trip had moved himself into position near Dio and was ready to throw his projectiles in offense. Dio glanced to the side a moment too late. He tried to summon his Stand in time but the darts were thrown too fast. Time slowed down as the darts pierced the air and zoomed in to hit Dio straight in the side of his face...

* * *

Back at the base a howling roar of battle-ready maniacs assailed the ears of Starski. The White Doves, led by their singing leader who danced in a trance of blood-lust atop a mound of unused bricks and mortar, rushed to Starski's position with knives and miscellaneous weapons poised to attack! Starski made strafing hops and sliding motions until the air behind him was totally open. The less solid objects in the way of his Stand's jet intake, the easier he could take in air to blast. He summoned his Stand, an evil energy resonating, and aimed its turbine fists forward. The gills on its back sucked in the air and then blasted it out into a huge wind tunnel that blew the lightweight crackheads away and smashed their heads against the unbuilt metal skeletons around them.

"Fools!" Starski shouted. _This place is my ideal fighting ground! Plenty of hard shit for your body to hit so you don't just go skidding harmlessly across the rough, gravel-layered dirt all around! The wind isn't as much of a problem as the environment that it blows you into is!_ Starski took in a massive amount of air and crossed his arms. The air went down to Run DMC's feet and blasted a huge cloud of dust up while Starski vanished.

"What the fuck!?" the leading Black Widow scowled. "How did he do that?" She saw small remnants of the attack force getting up and shaking off the damage as if it weren't there.

"Look at that!" one of the women shouted. "All those drugs they took numbed their systems and shut down their ability to feel pain!"

"What an obvious observation" another girl said. "Did you just now realize that?"

"It's how they fight" the leader said. "Dove has concocted a secret solution of dangerous chemicals that cancel the bodies ability to register pain or threats, so his gang is impervious to pain that does not immediately kill them. They can run with broken legs and fight with broken arms, but they are easily killed as they don't register the threat of an instant death from a spinal tap or knife to the brain."

"Where did that man go?" one girl asked.

"He is in the clouds now" Dove shouted in an androgynous and peaceful voice. "Look to the skies! Our foe paints clouds for us!"

"Up!" Black Widow shouted. Her team spread out and aimed their expensive weaponry at the structures high above. They used their night vision scopes and thermal visors to see any possible trace of their target but found nothing. Starski had in fact not stayed high up but used his Stand to jump across the battlefield to his private stock of weaponry. He took the guns from the plastic safe which stank of stagnant, unused sanitary water and equipped a heavy-duty battle rifle with sniping capabilities. .45 caliber armor-piercing rounds with semi-automatic fire and burst capabilities. Right now the burst would be useless and the recoil extreme, so he kept the gun as it was and started making his combat maneuvers to the unguarded flank of the women warriors.

"Search the grounds" Black Widow called. "He could be anywhere by now!"

"The snake that can fly" Dove prophesied "will often return its belly to familiar earth. Our serpent friend lurks in tall grass." The rest of the undamaged, still conscious White Doves came to their leader and followed his cryptic words. They spread out, running on all fours, with knives in the mouth to rip Starski apart. Starski hid behind the cover of a concrete foundation in a ditch dug to continue the construction and reinforcement of the building that would have been. He was tense and his finger clutched the trigger with dread.

_I've got a bad feelin' about this_ Starski thought. He used his Stand to peer over his cover and saw the enemy forces mobilizing, spreading out, and searching with manic war-like tenacity that he had only seen in movies and documentaries. These soldiers were Nazis, he thought, searching for the one remaining Marine still on duty in their fair conquered base of Normandy. Perhaps the opposite was true, as the gangs thought of Starski as the Nazi who was escaping with the lives of several of their own comrades in arms under his tight belt. Either way didn't matter. The shootout would determine who was the true victor of the war, the loser assuming the role of histories bastard in their grave...


	29. Smoke on the Water 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

In a split synaptic moment, where Dio's brain flashed with the static lightning of thought, the gold-haired man swung his arm and fell backwards. The coated needles sunk into his arm and he skid to a stop with his muscular arm held up like a shield. Four needles in his arm, which he brushed off like dirt, and one scraping his cheek bone in the side of his face. Dio tugged that needle out and threw it to the ground with contempt.

"What was on those?" Dio demanded.

"Just some drugs" Trip said, slowly fading out of visible light from his feet up. "You're going to lose a lot of feeling pretty soon in your arm and your face."

"Sedatives?" Dio said. "Damn you! You think mild shit like that will save you!?"

"Mild?" Trip said. He came around invisibly and grabbed Dio's effected arm. Dio saw his arm move back around to his back and he heard the creaking of his bones as Trip twisted it just up to its breaking point, and then it hit him. Half of his face was already paralyzed and now his entire left arm was useless. The sedatives worked with extreme speed! "If they were mild wouldn't you feel this?" SoaD came out and swung with its claws. Trip leaped away and threw Dio's arm down as he went. Because his entire left side was becoming steadily numb Dio couldn't tell if his arm was broken or not. He tried to move his fingers but nothing happened. His working eye twitched and half of his face snarled with anger, and finally his fingers moved.

_At least he didn't break it_ Dio thought. _However, he's got the upper hand entirely. I can't fight him like this, half-dead/ Son of a bitch!!!_ In Dio's rage he summoned his Stand and let it float above him with its arms crossed across its chest like an ancient, royal corpse. The black skin of its domed cranium was split open vertically and two eyes equally spaced above its nostrils and apart from each other, long and narrow with huge black pupils with red colored irises. Those two eyes cycled between regular telescopic sight, heat vision, infrared vision and finally X-ray vision. Trip was nowhere.

_Damn_ Dio cursed. _He can hide form me all he wants, apparently, but he refuses to run. I suppose as long as he remains in the area I have a chance at winning._ Dio limped his way over to the ruined tower and touched it with his good right hand. SoaD lurched down with its arms at its chest and began eating ravenously of the metal feast. Dio looked behind him with his one good eye and saw that his vision was becoming blurry. The drugs were coursing through his body, his fast-flowing blood accelerating the process.

_He's good. He waited until I was good and wound up to hit me without tiring himself out and decreasing his aim. I'm dealing with a professional..._ Finally SoaD was full, as evident by its normally thin stomach expanding out and rippling with the gastric shifting of sharp metal parts. Dio raised up his right hand and took the knives from SoaD's mouth which came out like an overflowing fountain of drool from the demon.

"Alright" Dio growled. "You think you can just hide forever!? **TAKE THIS!!!**" Dio began throwing his knives as rapidly as his good arm would allow. He could feel his shoulder give in to the drug and saw it naturally relax. Now only the muscles in his arm remained to spray the field with sharp metal knives. His right leg began numbing over as well and he found it hard to keep his right eye open. Trip watched carefully from his hidden vantage as the manic man made his last stand against the metal support bars of the toppled tower.

_He is a dangerous man_ Trip thought. _If I were to allow him to live I may end up regretting it...or perhaps not. He values the skills of his enemy enough to show me his full power in desperation. At least, I think that's what this is about. Another reason for this rampant berserk is that he's lost his mind, and that doesn't look too unlikely._ A sudden surge of dread came over Trip. Dio felt it as well but ignored it in favor of using the little force he still had left in his body to continue his shower of knives. SoaD began fading away with his conscious fighting spirit. Dio's senses all left him, and in his final moments of conscious life he looked around with the power SoaD granted him. Trip finally appeared and stepped out from the winding, wrecked debris of the fallen tower. Anger was the last emotion to come over Dio as he slipped out of consciousness.

"That's that" Trip said. "Looks like all your talk only lent yourself to a more embarrassing defeat. Always be prepared, always anticipate the unknown, never assume you know that your powers will work. There are many principals for fighting with Stands, and from the looks of things you understand very little about Stand fighting." Trip reached into one of the folds of his belt suit and pulled out a card with an illusion insignia scrawled onto it. A short, encrypted line of seemingly random numbers and letters under a strangely patterned shield of. The card held no color, making it seem even more visually confusing than it already was. Trip threw the card down and let it stick in his shining, beautiful golden hair.

"If you ever come up short" Trip said "in terms of Stand strength, get in touch with me. You won't regret it." Trip summoned up his crystalline Stand and prepared to vanish once more into the darkness but that same feeling from moments before flooded over him in a terrible surge. He rolled forward and caught the ground with his hands, pushing up and flipping around to face Dio, whose body had just stabbed at the air where Trip was standing. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open, but in his hand was a knife ready to rip flesh from bone.

* * *

_Lord Dio is incomparable in terms of ability. No one can match his strength or his wit. Even at his dying breaths he can inflict a lethal injury and drag his enemies all down to hell with him, using their torn flesh at the gaping walls of the terrible hole leading into the abyss to scale his way back up. Yes, Lord Dio is indeed an amazing man, but even men like him need some help from time to time._

_**Evanescence, take to his body.**_ Such was written in the little book held by Rosalisa watching in an open window. Her Stand stood below her on one of the electrical power sub-station boxes with all ten of its fingers ensnared around Dio's body. According to her user's wishes, Dio could not so easily perish and would fight beyond his own incapacitation. Trip was in a quiet, subdued awe over the whole strangeness and focused himself on the Stand controlling Dio's body rather than the body itself.

"Backup already?" Trip said. He vanished and began making his way up to the Stand, his being close-range oriented for combat. Rosalisa had somehow anticipated his motions and wrote his movements into her book so Evanescence would carry forth a defense. Dio's body flew through the air on its ten strings and stopped Trip by standing in front of him. Trip was invisibly shocked and tried to retreat. Rosalisa continued writing, still predicting his movements, and Dio's body chased with now more knives in hand. His arms went back and then whipped up, throwing the knives and hitting Trip in the back of his left leg.

"Hah!" Trip exclaimed. He was forced out of his illusion and tumbled to the ground, landing finally on all fours with his injured leg straight back and bleeding. "I wasn't expecting that...how did she do that?" Dio's body came in, a marrionette on deadly strings, to grab at Trip. Even with an injured leg the mercenary knew how to move. He kept off his bleeding limb and flipped and rolled away while Dio continued his pursuit. Eventually Dio stopped, took knives out from the ground and threw them with astounding speed.

"You've reached the end of your chain" Trip said, easily dodging the knives and slipping back into invisibility. He ran around to the other side of the building, away from Rosalisa's range of vision, and disengaged the fight completely. Rosalisa wrote some short passages in her book which ordered Dio's body to be safely placed amidst his knives and for her to be lowered down beside him. Her Stand followed exactly, then vanished as Rosalisa knelt down beside her injured lord, brushing her hand across his pale, sick face.

"You are a king, Dio" Rosalisa said. "Make no mistake...your queen will make sure no one can stand up to you anymore. I won't do so poorly next time..." With her guilt relieving an unconscious Dio of his own egocentric bruises Rosalisa sighed and took a small radio out form her dress. "I need evac stat. Lord Dio has been gravely inured and the enemy has fled." At her call the forces of the Frozen Nights mobilized with incredibly speed. They drove an armored van through the fence of the power station and carefully parked its rear to face Dio's downed body for easy loading. The black-robed men came out and very carefully picked him up, placing him inside what seemed to be the inside of a stolen ambulance with a deep-gray repainting. Rosalisa boarded last, taking one last brief look out among the ruins and carnage she and her gang had caused.

The van screeched off into the night and sent out a beacon for the rest of the Nights to return to base. Their job was done. A city-wide blackout that would last until the construction crews and day-shift personnel could fix all the problems that the night had brought. Until then the cityscape was shrouded in total darkness and Trip fled for the safety of his nearby checkpoint, not needing his Stand's powers when there was no light to manipulate.

"Her Stand" he reminisced "can control others. His Stand is remarkably destructive. They must be working together to accomplish such panic and destruction in such a short period of time. However, their teamwork was flawed and improvised at best. If they were really more organized they could have disabled my Stand and then killed me freely. Thankfully I gave them my card. I feel like they will need it in the coming months...yes. This soldier will be quite busy for some time..." Trip continued racing through the streets on an endless supply of adrenaline while the city echoed with the sound of distant combat.

* * *

"Activate Night Vision!" Black Widow ordered loudly across the silent grounds. Green circles in triangular clusters came into existence instantly and a collective high-pitched hum rang from the groups of gun-toting women. Starski stayed hidden in an alley of absolute darkness, moving silently with his own high-power gun in his arms and gripped with a ready trigger finger. He didn't have night vision, but he knew where he was going without it.

"Right flank empty" a girl reported. A static of radio chatter came from her ear, unheard by Starski. "Affirmative" she replied. She then began moving away and Starski took his chance. He stayed low and made his way into the first floor of an unfinished building. This one had a second floor as well, but just the floor and no way of quietly getting up. Starski made his way to a pane-less window and propped the barrel of his gun out, aiming down the metal notched sight at the darkness.

_One shot_ Starski thought _and my position is shit. I need to make sure I've got a hundred-percent hit before I fire, then I've got to book it to some better cover. Like fuck this drywall's gonna hold them back!_ Starski stayed silent and steady, bending his knees deep to stay low and keeping his back straight. It was a tiring pose for him to hold, but it eventually paid off, as an anorexic figure with a head of thin hair came walking over the hillside. Even in total darkness the white of Dove's outfit gave him away. One leader in one shot, it was almost too easy.

So Starski continued to wait.

"He is near" Dove shouted. "I feel his eyes searching for my soul! Come, one and all, to me!"

_Shit!_ Starski cursed. He grit his teeth and tensed his trigger finger. The crackhead's head was dead in the center of his sights, but the risk of fighting off the rest of the soldiers from his disadvantageous vantage was too great for Starski to tempt. He just waited, and soon the leading Black Widow came to the Dove with a silenced pistol in one hand and short katana in the other. She made inaudible speech with her fellow leader, then she moved directly in Starski's line of fire. A golden moment came and Starski's finger gripped the trigger, but the gun didn't fire. Dove moved away in a poetic flourish of movement that ended in him spinning down to his hands and citing some bastardized Shakespeare.

_Mother fuckers..._ Starski cursed. _This is getting me nowhere fast. I need a distraction!_ Suddenly a loud clatter of metal rang out from far across the base. Starski fired his loud gun on instinct and blasted the brains of Dove into the air. Then he began frantically firing all around and clipped Black Widow before she could fully retreat. The metal clattering ended and Starski holstered his weapon across his back with its strap across his chest. _Checkmate, bitch!_

"Reinforcements NOW!" Black Widow screamed.

"What!?" Starski exclaimed in shock. _These bullets are armor-piercing, military-grade .45 caliber! She's not allowed to be alive anymore! She wasn't even wearing armor, her guts should be oozing out of the sides I drilled in her like chunky salsa! Unless...No way, could she be a Stand user?_ A metallic clink came from just outside the walls. In a flash of reason Starski knew what it was. He ran away from the window just before the drywall came flying at him from the grenade explosion. He took cover under his own arms and waited for the ringing in his ears to die down. Then, gunfire. "Shit!" he cursed. He pushed himself up on his feet and made a break for the wall leading to an alley. Run DMC was summoned with its arm wound up and punched a hole in the wall which Starski enlarged by plowing through it and landing in the dark alley.

"Where'd he go?" a Black Widow asked.

"Dove's dead" another said, noticing the body. A sudden blast of air came from behind the walls they just destroyed and Starski's figure cast a slight shadow on the already dark battlefield. He made a jet-jump straight up and started firing rapidly into the crowd, killing the Widows who stood gaping at him and several of the Doves who came rushing in. He began drifting down with increasing velocity due to his weight but summoned up his Stand again to soften his landing, kicking up a cloud of dust which made him wince.

"Great" Starski said, stowing his weapon on his back again. "Now on top of everything I've got to clear this dust! Shit! It's never gonna be simple, is it!?" Run DMC came out with its arms pointed outward in opposite directions, aiming at the dust that clouded either end of the alley Starski was in. He began running while his Stand worked and made it out into the open. Gunfire quickly came roaring out and forced Starski to run low with his arms over his head. "Knock it off!!!" Starski shouted. He ran behind more metal structures and out of their sight.

"Don't let him escape!" a woman shouted. "He's already taken us by surprise once, we need to stay on guard!"

"Break out the 'Fog'" one woman called.

"Do we have permission?" the previous woman asked.

"Yes" Black Widow said, struggling to talk against her pain. "Do it...kill him...**I want to take him with me to hell...**"

"Calm down, madam" a girl said, tending to her mistress. "You aren't dead yet."

_Right_ Starski said, overhearing their combative banter. _You ain't dead until I say you're dead..._


	30. Starski's Defense

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Starski continued stalking through the shadows, looking for the gateway of opportunity to put a finishing bullet through the Black Widow's head, but something was still troubling him about this battle. The 'Fog' they mentioned was in sight now, a small metallic-gray box which was carried at arms-length by a woman in a heavy radioactive suit. He was patient enough to wait to see this 'Fog' of theirs but he still kept his fingers steadily gripped on the trigger.

_Whatever they're doing_ Starski thought _it ain't gonna end well. Once I understand what that 'Fog' of theirs is I'll use it to kill them. If it's a gas I can easily blast it away with Run DMC._ The girl finally reached the highest mound of dirt in the base and set the box down at its peak. She pressed a combination into the top of the box and ran away. The box beeped at a slow, steady pace in rhythm with a flashing red light. Starski didn't wait too long before acting and took out the armored girl with a shot straight to the head.

"Trace that!" he heard in the distance.

"Oh shit!" he cursed aloud. A hail of sniper fire came his way. He retreated, hugging concrete walls that dampened the shots but still let them through and got himself to an area as far away as he could get. He scouted the area above and saw a sniper bullet coming straight at him. Thankfully the Stand was ethereal and the bullet was not, but the jarring sight of getting a .50 caliber round straight through the right eye was enough to send intense shivers through his body and Starski was paralyzed in fear.

"Lost him" a girl shouted. Distant speech resounded as the rest of the team communicated over a closed radio channel. Starski wouldn't have heard them anyway, as he was still pressed up against the wall in fear. From the outermost borders of the Frozen Night's main territory the vans rolled in. Night was almost over but the darkness that Dio gave the city persisted on, seemingly without end. Candles burned in the apartment windows of the more fortunate families who had access to such archaic technologies in a city but the lights were as few and far-between as the stars visible in the usually atmospherically polluted nights. The vans carried the Frozen Nights themselves, all that left were returning. Not a single casualty.

Dio was still out, the drugs working a terrible number on his system, but Rosalisa was quick to take charge of their coordination. She knew, only from instincts, that Starski would not yet be done killing the opponents sent to him. Her guards and the rest of the nights were well armed and ready to face the enemies as soon as the doors of their inconspicuous caravan transport opened up.

"Be ready" Rosalisa warned "for anything. We don't know how thorough the enemy is here, even if they are weak. Death is inexcusable and intolerable. If you die I will see that you are punished."

"How?" one of the newer thugs asked. Rosalisa was a terror known for her outright means of punishment. She simply used her Stand's long range to take out the short blade that particular talkative guard kept with him and stabbed his shoulder with it. "GAHHHAAAAH!!!" he shouted, clutching the bleeding wound. She repositioned the knife at his mouth and made a threatening glare at him. He sat back down and silently cringed at the intense pain, nearly unable to bear it.

"We're stopping" she said. The guards driving immediately slowed to a halt and equipped themselves for combat. Gunshots were heard from within the base. Rosalisa exited first, flanked by two of her personal guards armed with augmented automatic shotguns and stepped out into the opening with Evanescence floating behind her. Meanwhile, the box containing the 'Fog' opened up and a mysterious, thick mist poured out of it. It radiated with a terrible green pulsing but ended very abruptly, unlike a regular fog. Then another monstrosity came, the mangled reaching claws of some horrific creature crawled out from inside the cage and crushed the dirt which it climbed into.

Starski was engaged in heavy combat, trading shots and moving rapidly using Run DMC's jets to boost his speed but ultimately was losing his ground and getting cornered. The Black Widows had many more infantry soldiers than he initially thought. They formed a firing line with automatic rifles and long-range snipers all over the compound and sought out their black prey with a heated sense of vengeance. Rosalisa and her guards encountered the broken remnants of the White Doves and dispensed of them readily, taking ten of them as hostages under Rosalisa's power as ten body shields in the warzone.

All this transpired and distracted the fighters from the release of the 'Fog', a creature which now came upon Starski with glowing green eyes...

* * *

_This is the perfect chance!_ Starski thought with a grin. The fire had finally stopped as the girls reloaded and then lost track of the quick-footed man. He was closer then they knew, using his superior knowledge of the turf and flanking them out from behind. He poised his gun, ready to shoot, when a sudden brain-scratching screech pierced his ears and rattled his neck. He whipped his head to the side but was swiftly blinded by a furry, slimy surface that latched to his head and beat him with two tiny fists.

"UUUGH!!!" Starski shouted, firing his gun at random before dropping it. "Get it offa me! Get it off!!!" He summoned Run DMC to push the creature off and brushed his face fervently. Bullet fire quickly came his way, startling him back into cover where the creaturedattacked again, latching to his leg and biting with sharp fangs. "GIKHHH!!!" Starski kicked the thing off and hid behind a wall, watching in the utter darkness to try and see his newest assailant.

Rosalisa and her guards waded through the corpses they created and made their way to the central power station of the dark block. A separate emergency generator was located below the ground in a reinforced bunker, specifically for the buildings that were to be constructed had Starski not taken over the area with his gang. Rosalisa walked over to the main breaker, writing the whole time to keep her meat-shields floating near her as protection, and lackadaisically turned the power back on. Power lights flicked on all over the battleground, mostly around the headquarters and sheltered inner-block structures where the minor members of the gang slept. Starski was unaffected by the otherwise blinding flash as he was in an already dark alley when it happened. The girls, most of whom wore night vision goggles, were blinded painfully and some even fell from a deathly height in a blind daze.

"Get the fuck away from me!!!" Starski suddenly shouted. He used all four of Run DMC's jet turbines and roared into the air at a slope. He sailed right over and through the metal girder skeletons of the buildings and floated calmly back down in front of the mian house. "I'm done with this shit! Ya'll can have this damn place!"

"Hold it!" the abrasive Russian voice demanded. Starski stopped, whipped around and saw the leading Black Widow holding a powerful automatic rifle in her hands. She was otherwise fine, the effects of Starski's earlier attempt on her life not moving her in the slightest, and fired a stream of warning shots. Three hit Starski, two of them grazing his side and one hitting dangerously close to his heart. Run DMC's thick arm was inside his chest and blocked the bullet better than the armor the girl wore. He fell down anyway, exhausted mentally and physically from the constant running and recoil of his gun barrel, and waited for her obvious ultimatum. She stomped forward and held her gun by its grip, ready to unleash the hell in the magazine at point-blank range.

"Bring it" Starski growled, getting up slowly and summoning his Stand out in front. "Your bitch-ass can't touch this shit!"

"Oh I know" she admitted. "You are a **Stand user**. I have studied your file for a while now, but I never had the proper chance to confirm everything I heard before. You may be able to somehow block my bullets from this range...but what about a grenade?" She took out a small fragmentation device from her leather strap across the chest of her leather one piece and tossed it up and down. An old-school grenade with a pull pin and a push lever. Starski felt like chuckling at the archaic design.

Starski almost laughed at it and revved up Run DMC's arm and prepared to throw the little girl and send her tumbling away.

"You think you can beat the grenade?" she asked. She pulled the pin and pushed the lever. Then she let go and continued to hold it.

"Damn!" Starski shouted. He used his power and blasted the grenade to a safe distance, gusting her metal-era hair as the explosion shook the far-away peaks of the buildings. She took the opportunity and fired a stream of shots, two of which hit and unguarded surface and sank into his chest, causing him intense pain and forcing him to the ground with a threatening death looming over his head.

"What's wrong?" she asked, aiming the hot barrel an inch from his head. "Are you scared? A mighty Stand user like you? Oh, how pitiful, that a mere human was able to so easily bring you to your ass in mercy!"

"I just wasn't good enough" Starski said with a grin. "Dio's better." She jerked back and stomped on his chest, right into his bullet wounds. "GGGNNNRAAAAGH!!!!"

"Who is Dio?" she asked. Starski panted to build up the strength for defiance but it was unneeded. The creature came running out of nowhere once more, let out another huge scream and distracted both of them at once.

_I have heard Dio before_ Starski thought _in a report I received. He is wanted by many. To take over a gang like this, with such great standing in the city, he must be very strong._

_Shit shit shit!_ The Black Widow thought. _Not this freak again!_

"He's here?" she said, stumbling back. The creature latched onto her screaming, denying face and started hammering on her head while Starski took the advantage and ran away. He got as far as the door to the unbuilt ground-floor base of operations but was stopped by the prying fingers of Evanescence.

"No running" she commanded, writing her wrist sore. "Go back and finish your job." Starski's body was abducted by Evanescence but his Stand remained under his control. He summoned it and prepared his power, taking in huge amounts of air and concentrating it into a single point, a super-hot spear of ultra-hot air. "I will write your motions. Fill in the blanks between my words. **Do your duty, soldier of the Frozen Nights.**"

_Man, shut up!_ Starski thought. _I was gonna do this anyway!_ He finally got close, just as Black Widow pried the creature off, and sliced her open with his blade of fire right through her middle. No blood sprayed, however, as every organ and vein that was sliced was instantly cauterized by the blazing red Stand energy.

* * *

Morning reared its ugly head at last. The Frozen Nights took the night victoriously, almost effortlessly, by cleaning up their base of all rebellious people. The conglomerate of gangs, the Pendulum Crime Syndacate, was dissolved and defeated overnight. The only living member, the Red Wolf, was never found by Dio's guards when he retreated. He simply vanished from their radars after Trip interluded and saved him. Now the gang divided their spoils of war among the infantry and traded the somewhat exaggerated stories of their war.

"See this scar?" a soldier said, pointing to the stitched wound Rosalisa gave him over the night. "I was under attack by fifteen of those mother -fuckers inside the plant. I came up behind one, BAM! Snapped his neck. Came up behind another one, but I didn't know that this guy knew karate, judo and shit. I tried to stab his back but he spun around, kicked the knife outta my hand and grabbed it in mid-air."

"Was he Asian?" a younger man asked, enthralled by the story.

"Maybe" the bragger said. "Chink or not, his moves were smooth, and he stabbed me right in the shoulder. It hurt, but I just looked him in the eyes and said 'yeah, well I can do better'. So I punched him in the chest so hard that his ribs all broke and stabbed into his lung, and then I grabbed his chin and held him over my head and shouted 'now sing for me!' And that fucker started gurgling up his blood until he drowned in it!" Uproarious laughter resounded. The combination of blatant bigotry and over-the-top descriptions of violence was the perfect formula for all the lesser ranked soldiers to laugh at. The higher ranking, more experienced pale-skinned elite knights were silent in dividing the fortune and cataloged it properly.

Back in the homebase room, the absolute headquarters, the four Stand users rested and thought of their previous night of conquest. Starski kept himself awake from the nearly sleepless night by pacing around and sipping from a cup of coffee, his wounds expertly stitched, soldered and cleaned up under a heavy gauze wrap. Dio was still asleep and was kept on intensive care to counter-act the system numbing effects of Trip's drugs while Rosalisa kept watch over the fourth user. The 'Fog' from the previous night, the Black Widow's secret weapon.

"You are no ordinary Stand user, are you?" she asked to the angry creature in the steel cage. Short legs and long arms covered in fur and a strong young body with a chest and abdomen coated in slimy, slender scales. Its prehensile tail went form hairy at the source at its back to a pointed and frilled tail at the end. It had the furry face of a monkey but the slit nostrils and eyes of a lizard with a short line of yellow frills running up its cranium. It was a blasphemous creature created for the stealthiest of assassinations, for no sane man who survived would believe himself that he was attacked by a monkey-lizard monster and no one would believe him either. Rosalisa had taken a slight, perverse liking to the creature which she had already affectionately named.

"I like strange things" she admitted. The creature snarled like a lizard and screeched like a monkey, invoking its Stand at her. A Buddhist visage just as small as its user with the head of a four-eyed fish. It opened its mouth and breathed out a small bubble which Rosalisa clutched in her Stand's hand. It burst open and a muffled mental screeching rang out into the room. She looked at the attack then at the monkey who was panting from releasing the energy bubble. "**Monkey Business**" she said, perking the creature's attention. "Yes...why not. I believe Lord Dio would name you better, but until he wakes I will call you Monkey Business." Monkey Business scratched its head with its clawed nails and hopped around, hooting curiously. He had apparently never seen another Stand aside from its own before.

"My name is Rosalisa" she said, trying to make conversation. She pointed across the room at the unconscious sleeping king with his golden hair and steely-serious face sleeping on a bed. Dio Brando, exhausted and half-dead, slept off his extreme sedation in the safeguard of his admirable mistress. "That is your new lord and owner, Dio Brando." Monkey looked over at Dio and hooted curiously still, scratching at its belly and picking its nose. Apparently Dio's animal magnetism was limited to attracting the attention and admiration of freaks of nature like Monkey Business. Starski was not pleased in the slightest over the adoption of the monkey and angrily chomped a banana.

"Yeah sure" he began, "give the damn mongrel special treatment. Don't give a loyal man like me a damn thing!"


	31. Monkey Business

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

High noon. Dio showed no signs of consciousness at all. His vitals, measured and tracked by a stolen EKG machine, were at a near comatose level and his breathing was slowed to a near halt. His presence was drained from that of a mighty charismatic God to that of a much pitied man who lay on his deathbed. Rosalisa sat by him, looking as plain and emotionless as ever, knitting a small suit for the newest forced recruit who lay lazily in his cage in the corner. Starski leaned against the doorway, making sure no unwanted attention was drawn to his current 'employer' by his own previous 'employees' as seeing a man that powerful in a near-dead state would shock the morale straight to hell. Monkey Business was tired and made no major movements. It had given in, apparently, to its capture but the hostility was still in the air, particularly toward Starski.

"So now what?" Starski finally asked. Rosalisa looked over at him and kept knitting, a skill she had honed quite early and at an expert level. "If we got no leader how can we hold our ground? You know the other gangs heard about us fucking up the power last night and they're sending troops out right now. We're as good as dead if we just stay in here, moping around because Goldilocks won't wake up."

"Refrain" Rosalisa began "from mocking our Lord. He fought a terrible battle against a man out of his league. It is no surprise that he is in such a drained state."

"I'll say whatever I want" Starski said "so long as I can. I know we're both in this gang together but dammit that wasn't what I wanted at all! You forced me here!"

"Lord Dio" Rosalisa said "spared your life and asked only of you to work under him. You should be glad that he didn't ask for your very life on the spot after all the remarks and depreciations you have made at his expense."

"This is my turf, you know" Starski said. "Nobody even knows who this fucker is right now. They see this as 'Lovebug' territory, alright? No one thinks nothing of the Frozen Nights!"

"EEEH!" Monkey Business screeched. Starski silenced himself at once.

"That monkey" Starski said after a pause to catch his breath "freaks me out. I think we should consider...euthanasia." Monkey Business got up and started hopping around angrily, snarling and hissing at Starski through the bars of its strong cage. "What can that thin even do?"

"It has a Stand" Rosalisa said "that seems to have **telepathic capabilities.** When it fought last night I was in range of its attack and heard the thoughts of the guards around me. It's Stand can apparently swap thoughts between people...although, without confirmation or testing I can't be certain."

"Where'd it come from?" Starski asked.

"You were there" Rosalisa said. "It came from a metal box." A terrible energy coursed into the room. Rosalisa and Starski saw Monkey Business with its Stand activated, the strange old relic god in humble red robes meditating in mid-air with the face of a fish. '**DAGON'** it was named after the fish god of Babylonia considering the sum of all its parts. The fish opened its mouth and a small Stand-energy bubble floated into the room. The Stand clapped its hands softly together and opened its mouth, emitting a low-pitched resonance that made the bubble grow and opened the ears of Rosalisa and Starski. The bubble formed in the middle of the room and colorful swirls of mist filled it.

Monkey Business was emitting its own thoughts into the room at its widest level of perception. The huge bubble reflected the light in all directions so the images inside could be seen all around. DAGON ceased humming for a moment, the clapped twice. The mist inside formed crystal-clear images as seen directly form the eyes of the young monkey and the memories began.

"Is the subject ready?" a man in a lab coat asked. The young nameless monkey, purely a monkey and nothing else, looked back and forth as the skinny man in the coat and the large man in the gray suit talked.

"It should be" the deep-voiced man said, pacing away. The vision followed the large man over to a larger cylindrical vat. Inside was the barely-living preserved torso of a young woman who had lost her legs, her arms and much of her skin. "Her vitals are fine but they're dropping fast. We'll need to push up the estimated completion date."

"Out of the question" the skinny lab-coat man said. "Neither of them are in stable enough condition to consider a transplant."

"Details" the suited man said. "As long as the hearts end up beating nothing else matters."

"We can't just" the lab coat man began.

"Of course we can!" the suited man interrupted. "You don't seem to understand just what we are doing here. This may be the first successful transplant of its kind! All the others turned out horribly. These two are in just the right synchronicity for a successful surgery. There's nothing to it!"

"There's plenty to it" the lab coat man said. "Switching the souls of two living things is not a scientific feasibility! It's so far outside the boundaries of reasonable scientific logic! You do understand the irony of a transplant of vital organs in order to transmit the souls of two living things!?"

"Not at all" the suited man said. "As far as I'm concerned a failure only means that you didn't try hard enough. There's nothing impossible about this. Just do what needs to be done before we lose any more of her to your _mistakes_." The suited man exited the lab in a quiet and dignified huff. The man in the coat had his feathers visibly ruffled and paced over to the tank holding the ravaged torso of the girl.

"Stands I believe" the man said. "I've seen her powers with my own eyes..._her_ own eyes, but this procedure is utterly impossible. I can't follow through with it. We've already lost so many subjects, and it's only a matter of time until he beings abducting _humans_ for this bizarre ritual of his..." All the facts came pouring out, straight into the minds of the Stand users. Monkey Business opened its heart and divulged its past...

* * *

The apparent day of the procedure the monkey was sedated but its visions carried on in its vivid dreams. It had simple animal dreams, seeing itself in a wide open plain where the planets floated close by as giant celestial fruit and the trees were all in the distance, forming a border for the flat world in which the monkey lived. It thought of fruit and was given some by a hand that extended from a long arm in the sky. It thought of water and a river ran by just long enough for it to get a drink. As it was thinking of crapping a horrible pain shot through his tiny body and the monkey woke up strapped to a table with a myriad of strange, sharp objects glaring their light at him overhead.

"EEEEEEEKEEEEEE!!!!" the monkey screeched.

"Shit" a masked man in thin, simple surgical garb said. "The process is taking too long! We need more anesthesia!"

"We can't risk an overdose" a fellow surgical attending said. "We'll have to restrain him instead."

"How much more can we restrain" another said "without compromising the delicate muscle fibers?" The monkey couldn't see until the lights were dimmed so the doctors could move in. Large sections of its fur were gone, leaving it mostly naked, and its brain was fully exposed from its skull. The monkey's stomach had a cleanly stitched incision running from the throat to the groin. It went into a panic after staring at its deformed reflection for a few seconds and started dangerously thrashing around.

"Shock it!" a doctor shouted. They grabbed a set of thin needles and clacked the tips together, sending a surge of electricity skipping between them, then pressed them at the monkey's temples. It fell limp on the table once more, looking over to the side where the fresh corpse of the greatly torn apart girl was covered with a tarp. Her head ended half-way up and the tarp, dropping suddenly where the very feint signs of a frozen smile were seen...

Hours passed in darkness. The monkey, unable to shake the terror from before, thought only of making sure its hairy head was intact. Being a dream it felt so but the monkey still refused to have its hand leave its head for anything. That's when a bright flash of light interrupted the dream and blinded the monkey. When he came back he saw the dancing, skipping outline of a human girl against a blinding white light. She danced to and fro, throwing her hands up and kicking her legs with ballet leaps and bounds. The monkey bobbed up and down in its own primitive dance, jumping up with its stubbly legs and strong, long arm, then the girl vanished with a farewell wave. The monkey reached out to try and grab at her but the image was gone.

Now the light died and bubbles came from the ground. The monkey looked down and saw that the ground had left him, and he was now floating in an infinite mass of dark blue water. It struggled to surface with one arm, making sure its head was still on tight with the other, and eventually its breath started to fade. Although the reality of the situation was uncertain, the monkey seemed to die for a short time, as its breathing stopped, its body limply floated up and its other hand left its head. The chilling sensation of death crawled all over its skin, which felt clammy and foreign.

A hand reached into the abyss and scooped the monkey out, carefully leaving the tiny creature in the caress of its creased palm. The monkey felt a bright sun at its body and stirred itself away, covered with its own fur and head still attached. It first saw the hand, which was as massive as any world the monkey could imagine, and then it followed the hand up the long arm to the deity which floated high in the sky. A mysterious figure covered in beautiful red robes and a scarlet hood.

"Be not afraid" the deity spoke. It used one of its four arms to take off its hood and revealed its true face, that of a giant benevolent fish. "I am your new power. Use me as you wish, fated friend." The monkey was confused, for starters, then it started chattering in its own strange monkey-speak. The Stand understood perfectly and answered its questions. "You need no worry about the girl. I was her Stand once, and she used me well to read the hearts of people so she could help them, but she one day found herself in a terrible situation. She was dead when I last saw her, and now I have taken her soul and placed it in your care. She has become a part of me and, in turn, a part of you. Do well to guard us both, little one, as your future is one full of promising work..."

That was it. The bubble burst and snapped Starski and Rosalisa out of the vision so fast that they were dizzy. Starski nearly fell straight to the floor and Rosalisa had to place a hand on her face to regain her conscious feeling. Monkey Business came out of his meditation and looked up with an unholy glare.

* * *

"Damn!" Starski shouted. "What...the fuck was that all about?"

"He was showing us" Rosalisa explained "all of his memories that tie into his Stand. Apparently I was right. He has the ability to convey telepathic messages and swap the thoughts of others, the second ability apparently stemming from the transference of his Stand during that surgery."

"Then why is he part lizard!?" Starski exclaimed. "That didn't explain a god-damn thing about the lizard part!"

"A mutation" Rosalisa theorized bluntly.

"From human organs?" Starski asked. "Then **WHY A LIZARD!?!?!?**" Monkey Business used his Stand in an instant to swap the thoughts of Starski and Rosalisa with a psyonic screech.

_I'm about to bust this thing's godless ass!_ Starski's voiced echoed into Rosalisa's head. Starski heard nothing at all, as the infinitely stoic girl had defensively removed the thoughts from her head and left Starski with a hollow numbness in his brain.

"I wonder" Rosalisa said as she got up. "Could you possibly show us what Lord Dio is thinking with the same ability as you used to show us your memories? Monkey Business, could you do that?"

"Hmmmm" MB hummed.

"I can just as easily command you to" Rosalisa said, drawing out one of Evanescence's arms. MB glanced over and activated his Stand. The arm twisted and malformed into a flat surface and then burst into a cloud of pages. Rosalisa felt her own arm become utterly limp and saw small tears forming as her skin started to peel apart like a book. "Ow" she flatly moaned. "Stop this. I only meant that I did not want to use force if you are willing to comply."

"Let go a' her!" Starski shouted. He activated his Stand as well and revved up a blast of air, but before it could go out the heavenly beams from DAGON hit him and messed his mind up. His vision blurred and he totally lost his sense of balance, falling to the side and blasting the air where he hoped it would reach his target. He missed Dio by a few inches and decimated the EKG machine with the blast. "Dammit, what the fuck is it doing now?"

"It can manipulate our Stands" Rosalisa said, crawling away "as easily as it can read our minds." MB smiled with its pointy fanged rows of teeth and stood up triumphantly in its cage. Its long arms were crossed and its legs were straight, the talon claws digging into the thick matting of its cage. It chattered in its own indistinguishable language and pointed at Dio's body. "Do not think of harming Lord Dio" Rosalisa warned. She used her Stand's other hand, despite her skin peeling back and wrinkling like wood shavings, and extended the fingers to grab at MB and pick up Starski. MB used its Stand to deflect the paper fingers but Starski's body physically grabbed an choked him.

"Thanks Rosalisa" Starski said. "I've been wanting to do this."

"Stop" she said, throwing him against the wall.

"Dammit, bitch!" Starski shouted. "Choose whether you want me to help or hurt the fucking thing and stay with it! I ain't going along with your crazy-ass mood swings!!!" Rosalisa lovingly opened the cage and expressionlessly knelt down to take MB in her arms.

"Please" Rosalisa said, holding out her arms to let the monkey into her embrace, "trust in us. We are the Frozen Nights, the ground-shattering force which holds no rival. We are decimators, incinerators, bringers of oblivion and despair. Join us please and use your power to better the world and kill all of its unholy spawn. **Help us shatter the frozen night.**" MB was confused by her banter, understanding it yet at the same time not having a clue what she meant. Starski got himself back up and snarled openly at the monkey. MB decided against its instincts and trusted her, leaping into her arms and climbing up to her shoulder. MB had officially joined the Frozen Nights at that point. Rosalisa raised her arm an pet the monkey on its spiny frilled head.

"Good boy" she said. "If you want to kill Starski you must get permission from Lord Dio first."

"Hey" Starski growled, "why you laying all this hate on me?" MB looked back apologetically at Starski, waiting for him to look the same way. Starski kept his face in a scowl but upon seeing Rosalisa's dead eyes turn on him in command he smiled and nodded. MB took one look at him and gave him the finger, then turned his back to him and raised his tail. "Son of a...komodo..." Starski growled...


	32. Mysterious Miscreant in the Still City

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The campus was abuzz with the vivid life of a concerned student body. The recent electrical outage was responsible for numerous dorm-related problems, as well as a random assortment of other technical malfunctions affecting the staff and employees of the college. A new bulletin board entry was posted at the central building, the main office for the president and forum of all the campus news. Jojo stood before it, pretending to read it, when he was simply staring down his still defiant Stand, The World, as if floated directly in his path.

"Are you kidding me!?" one aggravated and rather spoiled student called. Jojo looked over and saw his growling snarl as he read the post. "The whole reason I'm here is to study like a professional! No one tells me 'I'm on my own' for any time!"

"Why can't they just order catering?" another spoiled rich girl said. Jojo took in all the comments from the students as he couldn't read, and gathered that the cafeteria, one well known by the surrounding township to be on par with a gourmet restaurant in its finely crafted cuisine, was closed due to the power outage the other night. "This is absurd. I'm calling someone."

"Who would eat out" a young man said "in that disgraceful little town?"

"I know!" REO suddenly shouted from the rear of the group. "I don't even go here and I'm pissed!"

"REO?" Jojo called. He attempted to stealthily make his way through the crowd and met up with his friend, drawing the attention of the student body to them both. "What are you doing here? Do you have _any_ classes?"

"I'm not sure" REO admitted. "I haven't reported to the campus-proper since my father enrolled me. I guess I'm a delinquent."

"And I'm the friend of a delinquent..." Jojo said with spite. He walked away with him, leading the gazes back to the outrageous announcement, and attempted to walk his friend out. However, more pressing matters made themselves aware by floating in front of both Stand-conscious men.

"Jojo" REO began with concern, "it's staring at us."

"I can't control it" Jojo admitted. "I tried fighting it with my ripple, but I lost and nearly died."

"What!?" REO exclaimed.

"Last night" Jojo began, "on the roof..."

* * *

The darkness had not yet fallen. The lights of the city were still shining like frozen fires off in the distance. Jojo made his way alone to the only unmonitored roof to subdue his rambunctious Stand, The World, which floated constantly around him. It taunted him ceaselessly, floating just out of his reach and causing mischief, generally throwing Jojo even deeper into a rage that rivaled his hatred of his nemesis, Dio. The World allowed him only the pleasure of its attention, turning its nose-point of its helmet up at the young man who glared it down.

"You" Jojo began "are a part of me. You can't control me, _I_ control _you._ Now...return to me." The World didn't move. It's mouth curled up into a grim smirk and its eyes looked down from the carved holes of its mask-like head.

_Direct intimidation won't work_ Jojo thought. _I guess talking aloud wouldn't help me either. This thing is part of my **mind**. I may as well think to it rather than play into its hand and seem crazed to normal people. Talking to a ghostly manifestation and talking to myself are the same thing to these people..._ The World tilted its head and looked up at Jojo with its head on its shoulder. Jojo started breathing, sending the force of the Ripple into his body, then he concentrated it into his fists. He knew from experience with Bon Jovi that his fists could contact a Stand and even cause harm if he concentrated.

_Come on!_ Jojo exclaimed. The World parted its arms, making wide arcs above its head, and curled its fingers at its sides with its arms half-flexed. It floated down so its toes touched the artisan-tiled roof and squared itself against Jojo, clamping its fists together. It's power was such that gusts of wind were produced from its simply forming of fists together. Jojo ran forward the short distance between he and his Stand and engaged it with some quick jabs. The World dodged in a human way to humor Jojo and backed up, keeping its fists up to block the sun-charged weights attacked to Jojo's wrists. The World moved its arm to block and deflect one of Jojo's swings, then delivered its own phantasmal jab to his chest. Jojo was bent back from the shock and then bent over in pain when The World planted its powerful fist into his gut.

"GA-Hua..." Jojo groaned. The World slowly withdrew its fist, leaving Jojo to fall onto his hands and knees. The World just watched from above, fists still knotted, while Jojo reeled over his pain. Tears were forming out of the jarring pain, such stunning blunt force he hadn't ever felt before, but his breathing wasn't lost in the slightest. He reached out with his burning-hot hand and clutched The World's ankle. The World felt the pain and was surprised at first, looking down unexpectedly, then it reeled back and clutched its teeth together, wincing in pain.

Jojo recovered, stood up and threw a punch. The World's eyes bugged at the sight and suddenly the Stand vanished. Jojo felt a hollow wind gust through him and then felt a chilling coldness leak out from his back. The World returned and exited from him, shocking his system and forcing him to the roof he stood on. The World looked down with solid-steel eyes and watched its 'master' sleep away the pain. It knew that before morning came Jojo would try again, but despite the synchronicity it shared with his body The World ended up waiting until it vanished as Jojo was completely unconscious...

* * *

"When I woke up" Jojo finished at the arch of entrance to the campus grounds "I was in my room. My room mates swore that I never left. Even if I did leave and they didn't notice or if it was all a dream somehow fabricated by my Stand, the pain I felt was just as real then as it is now..."

"You're still hurt?" REO asked. Jojo nodded. "Of course you're hurt, idiot! Only a Stand can fight another Stand!" The World was still standing in front of them, back turned, watching the distant cityscape in its powerless cloak of dim-light darkness. "Why would you try to screw with it! If it's above my head and above Zeppeli's head then it's _definitely_ over your head!"

"Sorry" Jojo said apologetically. "I don't even know how this happened. I'm just trying to make sense of have a Stand I can't control!"

"Don't get snippy" REO said. He took a quick glance to The World, then flinched when it slowly turned its head in his direction. REO lowered the brim of his bowler hat and kept that edge lowered in The World's direction as he turned his head. "You may have more control than you think. The only reason you can't control it is because of your mental state. You aren't ready for it yet, but it's still tied to your mind. If you get angry _it's _gonna get angry and then what's gonna happen?" Jojo only thought for a second, then became ridden with guilt. "Exactly! And I happen to like my ass! The ladies like it too!"

"What ladies?" Erina asked. REO and Jojo snapped around in a panic and saw her standing with her hips cocked, watching them from up on the inclined grassy knoll. She smiled at them, letting them know they weren't in trouble, and came down between them. "What are you looking at? The city?"

"Power's still out" Jojo said, motioning to the obvious signs of inactivity. "They say it was an attempted terrorist attack on the power plant."

"Attempted?" REO said. "You mean successful, right? The whole main tower got knocked down. There's construction going on all over the place to get it fixed."

"Really?" Erina said.

"How could that happen?" Jojo asked. Of course, by instinct he already knew, and stared straight at REO with venomous glares to confirm it. REO tipped his hat down before raising it back up. _Dio..._ Jojo internally growled.

"So" Erina began, "there's no food here and probably no food in town. Since classes got canceled so security can search the campus, who wants to go on a little road trip?" Jojo was surprised. No one had mentioned that in anger, although with the rampant tension that had been going on in the past few days, he didn't blame anyone for not being as shocked about classes as they were about the food being canceled.

"Why that'd be nice" REO said, moving over to nudge Jojo's side. "I think this guy could do with a little getting-away, right Jojo?"

"Huh?" Jojo grunted, barely present during the conversation. "Oh, um, sure."

"No need for bashfulness" Erina said, grabbing his thick wrist. "We'll take my car!"

"Nice!" REO cheered. Jojo just went along for the ride, unable to argue otherwise. His mind constantly drifted off to Dio, the place he now lived, the plans he had and the powers he controlled. The anxiety of not knowing consumed him more than he would be willing to admit, but as he snapped back into reality he found himself staring down The World as it sat on the hood of Erina's sleek pink convertible car.

_Is this your fault_ Jojo asked The World _or mine?_ He referred to, of course, his violently lapsing memory. The World just grinned its curly sneer at Jojo while Erina slipped on her stylish, wide sunglasses and started up her car.

"Why am I in the back?" REO asked, spread out on the back seat with his hat over his face. Jojo looked around, saw the increasingly relaxed mood, and settled back into his seat. Better to go along with the tide then try to fight it...

* * *

They drove straight through the dormant traffic lights, blazing along the cityscape buildings dead of power and void of life, searching for some sign of life or at least some road-side restaurant operating out of necessity for the people. Nothing at all. The city was as lifeless as the moon.

"This sucks" REO said.

"You can't even see anything" Erina complained. "From up here it _really_ sucks." REO sat back up and looked around, keeping a hand on his hat so it would stay on his head.

"Oh wow" REO said. "This is worse than I imagined."

"People are probably staying inside" Jojo said, "for fear of another attack."

"Hopefully" Erina began "they all have some food stored or something. I can't believe a school as esteemed as ours doesn't have a single damn pantry!"

"I had some dehydrated food" Jojo said "and bottles of water, but MRIs aren't exactly a gourmet food for the upwardly mobile."

"Why eat those?" Erina asked.

"He was in the army" REO said. "Tell her, Jojo."

"I wasn't in the army" Jojo denied. "I liked them since I tried them when I was camping with my father-in-law."

"Oh yeah" Erina realized. "You were raised by that historian, Zeppeli."

"You know about him?" REO asked.

"General History" Erina said in explanation. "His book is part of the required reading for the semester. I got it online at half the cost of the bookstore price."

"I have copies of all his books" Jojo admitted with a distant, nostalgic annoyance "stacked in my closet in my room."

"Damn you!" Erina cursed. "I wish I knew that before! You need to tell me more of this stuff!" She pushed at Jojo's stone-solid muscles and he moved to it comically. The mood was finally lifted up from its previous demure setting and Jojo found himself smiling and laughing. He looked out the front of the car, almost an unconscious reaction so he could see where Erina was taking him, and saw **nothing. **The World was gone, no longer sitting with its legs and arms crossed glaring him down. He searched his mind and his soul for that chilling, hollow feeling of an alien presence but found, once again, nothing. The World just vanished entirely.

"Hey!" REO exclaimed. Jojo turned with frantic eyes, pleading silently not to involve sweet Erina in the torrid world of Stands, but REO had something different to say. "Slow down! You're gonna hit him!" Erina screeched on the breaks, Jojo slammed against his seat and the car came to a very sudden stop. All three of them were jerked forward and REO fell to the floor on his knees. Erina recovered from the whiplash jerk with her glasses hanging off her face.

"What the fuck!?" Erina shouted.

"What?" Jojo replied. Erina exited her car in a rage and attempted to shake down the young man she had nearly hit but he ran away. She ran back to the car and pressed a button on the side of her door to automatically unlatch Jojo's seat-belt. "Erina, did you just-"

"Chase him down" Erina commanded. "That bastard stole my sunglasses!" Jojo moved up and out of the car. He began running, chasing the retreating character in head-to-toe blue. Blue jeans, a blue jacket and a blue beret sprinting away from far ahead.

_I thought_ Jojo thought _a girl like Erina would be a bit more...refined..._ While Jojo mulled over her crass mouth the retreating thief began drifting towards the concrete stoops of the high-rising apartment buildings. He ran up the hill of stairs two at a time, then cart-wheeled on the top step and planted his feet at the edge of a stone-enclosed garden area. Jojo reached the top of the steps and saw the young man who in his eyes resonated with a mysterious energy. He turned, keeping his feet pointed inward and toes pointed in the opposite direction of the leg they were attached to, obviously an act of incredible flexibility.

Underneath his deep ocean-blue jacket he wore a stylish shirt with what looked like a classical portrait of Leonardo DiVinci made form scrawled and chaotic graffiti set against a light-green fabric. His pants upon closer inspection, were loose and clingy, not jeans. His shoes were specifically advertised as running shoes as detailed by the French word on the side '_Courent!!!_'. His hands were half-sheathed in his pockets and were strapped with palm-padded fingerless black gloves. He had a youthful face with a straight nose and tin, curvy lips. His eyebrows were thin and sharply angled in a cocky furrow, above his eyes which were sharpened and obviously trained as they scanned and examined Jojo's form from crease to crevice of his clothes. A short strand of dark brown hair drifted out from the loose band of his blue felt beret, straying over his right eye.

"And what do we have here?" he asked in a young and rambunctious, youth-filled voice. "That girly-girl sent her body-builder Butch after me? Looking for these?" He drew the shades out from his pants pocket and put them on, leaning back with his arms crossed and an arrogant smile. Jojo snarled at him and charged, trying to calmly apprehend him and take the glasses back without a fight. He saw an ominous energy gather at his feet and he was suddenly in the air, flipping and turning over Jojo, and then he landed low to the ground behind. Jojo whipped around and saw a spinning low-kick coming his way. He jumped away, up to the stone wall the young man was just on, but his balance wasn't near his and he stumbled back into the dry dirt. The young man spun on his hands, flipped over to his feet and did a standing back-flip onto a metal guide rail that split the steps into two sets.

"Face up to facts" the young man said, "you ain't gonna catch me! I'm a registered bad-ass _parkour_ mastaaaahhh!!!" He flaired his speech by sticking out his tongue and posing with his index finger and thumb pointed at Jojo with both arms straight forward.

_What?_ Jojo thought. _Parkour? What is that...?_ Jojo saw the young man running perfectly along the rail until he got to the bottom. Once the rail ended he flipped off heading forward and grabbed the ground with his hands, then used the energy of his descent to seamlessly flip back onto his feet where he proceeded to run into a nearby alley. Jojo snapped out of his wonderment and pursued. He slid down the rail then kicked his legs to the opposite side and pushed off when he reached the bottom to get a running start toward the alley. Erina pulled up in time to see him follow the retreating thief into the dark and narrow alleys.

"Damn!" Erina cursed, cranking the car into reverse. "Come on, Jojo! Kick his ass!"


	33. Linkin Park 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The city had died overnight. With no power, no electrical blood to pulse from home to home from the energetic heart, the city had gone into a coma, desperately feeding off the scarce reserves of power that the outlying towns and sub-stations could provide. Alas, however, that the heart had been so viciously torn apart. Now it seemed that there was no longer any hope for the city to come back to life. Those who needed power to live were quickly gathering their things to leave at once. All mechanical stations had been closed, including the essential utility of safe road travel.

Without a means to control the ever increasing crime in the city, an advantage taken by the wittier criminals to operate in the blind sight of the police, the task forces had been sent out to occupy the city's borders and prevent anyone suspicious or under the influence of illicit substances from leaving the city. And, for the sake of simplifying their own jobs, the police profiled anyone who attempted to leave without some kind of special political permission so any possible threats of violence could be 'contained'. They just wanted everyone in one place so they would be easier to handle.

All of this meant that the police, with no working phones, could not get reports on the petty crimes that go on from street corner to street end. A young man stealing an expensive pair of sunglasses and resisting a vigilante's citizen arrest was just one of those things to go by the wayside of concern, leaving this young man who fled from Jojo knowing that he was in the clear so long as he could out run and lose his would-be captor. He felt that doing so would provide him with little to no challenge.

The young man flipped and rolled and sometimes did soaring jumps over all the obstacles in his path, knocking them down or directly motioning them at Jojo behind. Jojo, not as apt in the sublime art of movement as the man he chased, simply ran as fast as he could to pursue him. He jumped and dodged like a normal man fueled on vindication while keeping the nimble sprite of a man in his eyes at all times.

_What's with him?_ Jojo pondered. _They're just shades. He knows I'm just after those. He doesn't have to run away. I just want those shades back, but he's trying to make this personal!_ Jojo noticed the playful, arrogant smile across the man's thin lips as he spun around and dashed off to a side alley. He was strong on his stance to stay in advantageous turf where the obstacles were plenty and his possible escape routes were just as numerous. _I see...He just wants to play. Well then, I'll play!_

Jojo started running with even more drive than before, wild combative glares in his eyes and a predatory smile on his face. The man who ran from him saw that look and smiled to himself. He saw a ladder up ahead, drawn up above the ground, that led to a fire escape. He leaped up, keeping his speed, from a garbage can to a dumpster to a fence and finally latched himself onto the ladder. His legs carried him forward, swinging out, and at the apex of his swing he flipped himself around and began climbing. Jojo smirked and followed the pattern of his movements. The young man rolled up onto the escape ledge just as Jojo neared the garbage cans. He held a metal soda can in his hand and prepared to throw it.

"Bad idea, kid!" Jojo shouted, noticing the can. Jojo began scaling the same mountain that the runner had used. He took a high, flying step up onto a can lid, which buckled under his weight and pressure when he jumped onto the edge of the dumpster, which clattered loudly at the impact. The young man limply threw the can and it zoomed into Jojo's back just as he was air-borne and heading for the ladder. Jojo barely felt it. It was a futile attempt to slow him down. He reached out for the bottom rung of the ladder...but he hit the ground just a second later.

"Take that!" the young man shouted from up above. "I told you, you can't beat a master like me! I'm a parkour GOD!" He retreated further, rolling up the staircase after staircase, never climbing the same way twice and never simply walking up the steps. Bewildered and confused, Jojo got to his feet and checked his body. He was fine, it seemed, but something was still terribly amiss about his sudden descent.

_All he did_ Jojo thought _was hit me with a can..._ Jojo looked around and found the can on the other side of the fence. It was still spinning in place, somehow full of energy, grinding into the back-alley dirt and kicking up the city-street dust around it. Jojo watched it for a moment until the energy finally drained into the ground around it and it stopped. The paint of the brand was brushed away from the constant friction of the ground. _He did something to that can...he's a **Stand User! **_With those instincts set in his mind Jojo knew that this pursuit wasn't going just as deep as the shades. This young man had seen The World before and was challenging Jojo by provoking him to chase. Jojo ran up the chain-link fence, kicking two big holes with his feet, and reached the ladder where he swung in one hand before latching on with the other. Then he climbed up and began running up the stairs, climbing two and sometimes three steps at a time.

_I can't let him escape!_ Jojo thought adamantly as he ascended. _He could be with Dio, or worse, one of Dio's enemies. Either way, I need to find out his true motives. I have enough enemies as it is..._The young man reached the summit of the mountain first. He stood at its peak, above the roof-access doorway ten stories above ground, looking out at the street and equal levels of even higher-rising buildings all around. He stood in the shadow of one such obelisk to the mysterious romance of business and spirituality, the enterprising skyscraper to his left where the chase had begun. That tower cast its dark but protective shadow all across this end of the block, and when the sun went across the sky the shadow would go across the other buildings as well.

* * *

All these apartments were constructed together in conjunction with the upper management of this particular firm. Because this was the headquarters of the company, all the employees had much more important jobs than at any other branch in the world. Therefore their jobs came at a priority above most other things in their life. The office building they worked at was near in the center of the downtown metro matrix, a choke-point of traffic on the better days. To reduce, and hopefully eliminate, the tardiness of the task force the company bought out the block and offered all of its employees low rent, high quality apartments.

The project was a very controversial one, to say the least, as many small businesses and rising corporations were forced to move away to make room for the privileged employees. Many outcries of protest and rallies against the corporation were held, but none of them had any real impact. Many of the families were offered work, even those without degrees, so they could stay, but those who didn't bend to the offers were forced to move away. Just another unfortunate incident in the industrialization and monopolization of capitalist America. When someone succeeds, others must suffer and fail.

The young man looked over at the fire escape where he had just climbed up from and saw the huge, heaving frame of Jojo climbing up. So many flights of stairs, all so narrow and fragile, Jojo didn't think he could reach the end so quickly, yet here he was the young man staring him down. He pounded the roof and pushed himself up with the knotted fist. Now he was on level ground and breathing calmly. He looked up at the young man with a lean in his back, his right fist weighing his body into an uneven slant. The young man had his arms crossed and was standing on the back of his heels at the edge of the small platform above the roof access door, keeping his impressive balance the whole time. He stared at Jojo down the bridge of his nose with the shades pulled up over his beret.

"Hhhooooo...." Jojo breathed, kicking up a golden wind. His Ripple echoed into the air itself and slowly flew at the young man as a breeze, causing his very skin to shake. Jojo brought his heavy right arm up and pointed, finger and thumb, at the young man. "Pow!" he voiced, jerking his hand up. The Ripple effect suddenly came full circle. The energy that entered the young man and everything around Jojo suddenly exploded out, causing him to lose his balance as the shock of total disorientation overcame him. Metal pipes leading from the roof AC unit creaked as the temperature was unbalanced from the warm sun energy. Jojo took in a deep breath and breathed in the rhythm of life. The young man finally let himself fall and rolled upon landing out of habit.

The stand off ensued. Jojo with his arms drawn at his sides calmly, the young man leaning back and ready to start running once more. _I know I can escape_ he thought, planning his routes from memory. _Even if the next building is one story higher, I can use my skills and find a ladder or lowered ledge to get up to the roof. This guy looks like he could lift himself up pretty easily, though, so I'll have to find a fast way down too._

"I don't think" Jojo began "you can escape so easily." The young man's eyes shot open. His lips pursed together in sheer shock and he took a fearful step back.

"You" he shakily began, "you can read minds!?"

"No" Jojo admitted, "but I can tell what you're trying to think. Your eyes are shifting to the side, which means you're trying to think of a way to run so that I can't chase you. Sorry pal, but I'm going to chase you wherever you try to run until I get those shades back!" The young man was shocked.

_He's really determined to get these things back_ he realized. He took a step forward to prove he wasn't afraid of confrontation and loosened his pose. His body became limp and flowing with energy. From one twitch of his finger his entire body resonated with kinetic energy and he moved according to that one twitch. It reached from his arm to his head to his toes and that one slight movement edged him just a twitch closer to Jojo. In Jojo's sun-filled eyes he could barely see the fluid, subtle movements. He was searching for something different. He was looking for Stand energy.

Suddenly, a kick of nefarious energy sparked the senses of both boys and the young man charged in fast. He started throwing unskilled open palms at Jojo. Jojo dodged them on a hunch and guided him into a field of clutter around an AC unit. Jojo used the ripple and kicked up a piece of garbage on the roof, an ordinary Styrofoam cup, and flicked it at his aggressor. The young man merely tapped the cup and it went on flying behind him, picking up speed the further it went. Jojo rolled away and threw another object, this time an ordinary piece of dislodged roof concrete, and charged it with as much of the Ripple as he could. The young man went to deflect it again but was zapped and overcharged with the life energy of the Ripple. His hand pulsed with motion he couldn't keep up with and went totally numb.

"What the hell!?" he exclaimed, looking at his limp hand, trying to move it. Jojo came in, hands tense and fingertips coursing with energy, and began his own attack. He poked his finger into the young man's chest, twisting the flesh and imploding his clothes around the hole. The young man felt a dull thud hit him and was stunned, utterly in shock over what felt like a numb hole opening up in his gut. Jojo took that finger back and recharged it with the energy from the next, using his fingers as bullets in a gun, reloading after each shot, and filled the young man with dents and shallow holes.

_By triggering this sequence of nerves_ Jojo thought as he continued poking and stabbing at rapid speed with amazing precision, _I can force whatever Stand he has out into the open! These nerves react on instinctive life-threatening danger, just the kind of shock that forced a Stand into existence to defend its user!...well, that's how it's supposed to work..._ Jojo was finished and sealed up his acupuncture attack with a light one-inch punch to the dead center of the chest. The dents he made suddenly exploded back into normal position. The young man felt like he was on fire, like every muscle in his body was being slowly ripped from the bone and flesh that made him.

_GAAAHH!!!!_ the young man shouted, unable to actually open his mouth. His mind echoed with a similar pain, all the sounds and noises around him being amplified a hundred times over. _Damn...what did he do to me!? AAAAHHHH!!!! Save me somehow...**LINKIN PARK!!!**_ At that call a maelstrom of wicked energy started whipping around. Jojo jumped back and released the Ripple into his hands, preparing with a traditional street-brawling pose to combat the Stand with his bare fists. Out from the air a leg stepped and kicked up the dust. The energy began forming an intangible phantom in a human form. A Stand was born!

* * *

Standing roughly the same height as its user, Linkin Park stepped out of its mist of creation with its arms crossed. All over its sea-green body there were wheels. On its elbows there where wheels acting simultaneously as joints. On its forearms and on its triceps there where wheels, black as if coated with rubber but shining as if they were made of plastic. On its hands, shelled like fingerless gloves, a wheel appeared on each knuckle and in its palm. The wheel in the palm was on a circular swivel, apparently able to face any direction to spin and guide the rest of its body.

On its chest, between the two blocky chest plates, was a single wheel sticking out just a bit from within its body. The joints at its hips connecting its legs were wheels. On its knees, shins and at either side of each green sandal-wearing heel there were wheels. Its shoulders had wheels sticking out the back like two shoulder blades sticking out from its back. It spine was neatly exposed and decorated with wheels rather than simple bumps. Wheels were everywhere, which Jojo just had to assume had something to do with its overall power.

It's face was an oddity. It seemed totally inhuman. It wore a mohawk made of only one, large wheel and had goggles for eyes. It seemed oddly thin and streamlined, unlike any human Jojo had remembered seeing before. It had no mouth or nose, no real features aside from the wheels to speak of, on its face. It was perfectly aerodynamic. Even the sections where wheels could replace ears had been seemingly carved out to allow for more air to pass by the head. It was a thin, streamlined, acrobatic Stand wearing almost nothing but wheels. That was Linkin Park. Jojo memorized this Stand and prepared for its attack. He didn't prepare for its speed.

Linkin Park was not only already in front of Jojo but it had already punched him and forced him to cough up a string of spit. Then Jojo flew back, off the ground and near the edge of building, clutching his stomach which still seemed to feel like it was being punched.

"Huh?" the young man grunted curiously. "Wait...what is that thing!?" He pointed up to his own Stand which stood in front of him with its arms crossed. It turned around and helped him up with incredibly fast movements. They stared at each other for a long line, the Stand assessing the state of its user and the user assessing the existence of the Stand. Jojo finally got back up wit ha stagger and healed himself with the Ripple.

"Don't try to play dumb" Jojo said, pointing with accusation and a scathing growl. "That's your Stand, right!?"

"Stand?" the young man repeated. "What...what's a Stand?" Jojo lowered his finger and stared skeptically, almost like he was trying to hold back laughter.

"That." Jojo simply answered, pointing at Linkin Park. "That's a Stand. It's a personification of your mental energy."

"It is!?" the young man exclaimed. He tried to touch his Stand but his hand went right through it. "Woah! It's like...a ghost or something!"

"Yes" Jojo confirmed, now becoming a bit embarrassed. "It's made of 'Ghost Energy', so obviously it's going to be...ghostly."

"What can it do!?" the young man asked, eager to learn more.

_Oh no_ Jojo thought with dread. _Don't tell me...He didn't have a Stand before, he just had the energy! I **made** him the Stand!_ It was true. Through Jojo's exploratory actions to force his opponent to reveal his true power, he had created a new Stand which stood against him. The power the young man had known only by a name, Linkin Park, had taken new form. Will he be grateful or will he use this new power against Jojo, whose own Stand still defies his control?


	34. Linkin Park 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Erina drove at dangerous speeds through street lights, past stop signs and through all other markings of authority simply knowing that she could. REO was becoming scared for his life, knowing it was in the hands of this one pissed-off woman. No matter how fast or far she seemed to go she always managed to circle the block where she knew Jojo was still pursuing that thieving little wretch. She had a perpetual scowl on her face which REO dared not shake for the sake of his own vehicular safety.

"Erina" REO began, "aren't you being a bit extreme? It's just a pair of sunglasses. You're rich, right? Just get another pair."

"It's not about that" Erina defended. "It's about the sentimental value those glasses hold!"

"Oh?" REO grunted as he moved cautiously up to the front seat. "You mean from some former boyfriend, or perhaps a lover of yours?" Erina drew up her elbow, intently aiming it at REO's lap, and he withdrew his comments promptly.

"Okay" Erina admitted, "they've got no value to me in particular, but I won't be a victim of some petty theft! You know hoe many girls just let their stuff get stolen because they feel helpless, or that they can't do anything about it? And everyday that kind of stuff happens! I refuse to be a pathetic statistic!"

"...jeez" REO whispered. "Complex, much?"

"What was that?" Erina asked, wondering what he said over the roar of her own engine.

"Eh?" REO grunted, perfectly feigning his ignorance. He tucked the brim of his hat lower to hide his eyes and looked up at the moving cityscape. He had seen the same buildings from similar angles several times over already and was becoming impatient. Suddenly, a burst of familiar, dreadful energy came from up high. Stand Energy. REO darted his head unconsciously over Erina's and saw the plumes of strange, swirling energy, nearly invisible against the sunny sky.

_Jojo!_ He realized. _That kid must have been a Stand user, and Jojo can't fight back with out his Stand...but form what he's told me, and what I've seen, his Stand is berserk. It won't listen to him. It's like a separate entity, living inside Jojo and only coming out whenever it feels like it. This is bad. I need to help him out somehow!_

"Hey Erina" REO said, casually as he could, "can you pull over a sec? I need to find a restroom."

"You would say that" Erina skeptically fumed. She sighed and obliged him, screeching to a stop near the curb. "Wave me down. I'll just circle the block and look for you."

"Alright" REO agreed. He ran off for the alleys to assist Jojo in his roof-top encounter. Erina looked after him with disgust. She shifted into gear and drove off to continue circling the block, waiting for her hero to keep her name out of the charts and graphs.

"Figures" she said. "A man would stoop to going in an alley if he was desperate enough. How disgusting." She kept driving, making loud circles around the buildings, waiting for Jojo to come with the prize in hand, not that she was seriously expecting that much devotion out of a guy she had only known for so long, and whom she had mostly known through the various articles and publications on his life as an inherited billionaire. She sighed, still thinking of Jojo, and pulled over to calm her nerves in the open sun...

She stepped out of the car and leaned against the door, making sure her hat was on tight enough so it wouldn't blow away in a stray wind. She spread her hand across the front of her skirt, flattening it out, so it wouldn't get caught on an accidental breeze of metal part to save herself from potentially grim circumstances if it did.

"Jojo's such a nice guy" she mused. "I feel sort of ashamed making him run such a pointless errand for me...I should have gotten REO to do it..." Erina stood up from her car and sighed, planting her face into her hands and rubbing her eyes to see some common sense in the world. "No, I shouldn't be worrying about it so much! Why do I always get people overly-involved in my affairs like this? It's been the same since high school..."

"Hey" a raspy gentleman said behind her. Erina turned to him with a start and jumped upon seeing him. He was a stocky man with a slouch and a hunched back in a dirty overcoat. His head stuck out from the dirty-green collar like a turtle's head and blinked one milky-blue eye at a time. The clothes under that coat were baggy and worn, like he'd never taken them off, and his shoes were taped together with so much Duct Tape that they looked like they had been exclusively crafted from the matte-gray material. He looked and smelled repugnant, almost like a seal that had been bathing in the cluttered, rain-soaked garbage of the streets. Erina realized, mostly on a whim, that this man wasn't so disgraceful by choice. He was more than likely a homeless man who had been wandering around freely without any judgmental crowds in his way. Desperate to find a way to correct her imbalanced karma, Erina smiled at him and replied.

"Hello, sir."

"Hello, girl" he said back, looking up at her with his pale, whiskered seal face. "Say, is this your car?" he asked, motioning to the exquisite sports cruiser.

"Yes it is" she said.

"It's nice" he said, going up to it to inspect it closer. "Ah, a, _Aston Martin_ _V8 Vantage Roaster_. I imagine it gets a good 7000 RPM? Something like that? Of course, with cars like these, they tend to have a low-turning radius to compensate for the lack of quality power-steering. What other options did you get with it?" Erina was speechless for a moment, but remembering all the things her father had told her when he delivered her the car she recited all she knew.

"I got the detachable top" she said "and a larger gas tank with a fuel-saving pump system."

"Oooo!" the man hummed in amusement. "Such a wonderful car. I wonder what else is inside it..." The man laid his grimy hand upon the car and, in an instant, **it vanished.** Erina was shocked and mystified, so utterly taken aback by the sudden instance that she fell straight over and began crawling away out of shock. "I see..." the man said, inspecting the space where the car had disappeared. He raised his hand up and patted on an invisible surface, making a familiar hollow tap. "Good structure, gooood engineering. Americans make great cars, eh?" He turned with his lips creased and folded inquisitively to the frightened girl.

* * *

"Wow!" the young man exclaimed, looking over his hand and the green phantom echo that floated near it. "That's amazing!" Jojo was uncomfortable. He had just finished explaining everything he knew about Stands but felt that all he mentioned was still lacking, for even he didn't know entirely how to use his own and the only reliable source for the information had once again estranged himself from the world and vanished from his house. Zeppeli had taken his research, unbeknownst to Jojo, with the Speedwagon Foundation's branch on Supernatural research. He had yet to indirectly contact Jojo, and thus Jojo had lost the ability to stay in contact with him. Still, the young man was so amused that the thoughts of continuing the chase abandoned him and Jojo had taken the shades back triumphantly.

"I'm sorry" he said, grinning wide and rubbing his temples. "I understood what you said, but it's all gone straight over my head! I always thought my ability, one I called Linkin Park, was just a latent power that I had unleashed. I didn't know I had a dormant Stand!"

"Neither did I" Jojo said aside. He turned back and faced his excited young friend seeing his brimming smile and growing one of his own, though his was more nervous and cautious than glowing. "I'm sorry, but what did you say your name was?"

"Oh, right!" he said, standing up and brushing himself off. "How very rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is **Brad Bangalter**, the _parkour_ genius! I know it sounds a bit conceded to say, but it's the proven truth." Jojo looked curious at the accusation, prompting Brad to further divulge himself to his new friend, Johnathan. "You see, I'm from France originally, born in _Oise_ north of Paris. There is a famous park there where my family and I would go when we had the money. My sisters all loved the rides...but I just loved to run. I always ran in places where I wasn't allowed, under the wooden structures of the roller coasters, on top of the merry-go-rounds. I climbed on the Ferris wheel once, too."

"Sounds dangerous" Jojo said. Brad shook his head with a nostalgic slowness and subtle solemness.

"It was fun for me" he said. Jojo noticed the distant look in his eyes, like he was looking deep into his own past at the fond memories of his youth. Jojo wished that he could do the same, but his youth was a place where he was better off not treading. Brad and Jojo both snapped out of their respective trances when the fire escape ladder sounded off with a loud, echoing clanging. Jojo stood up first, activating his breathing technique, and waited. Upon seeing the energy that came up, however, he calmed down and simply sighed.

"Who is it!?" Brad demanded. REO flipped over the ledge and grasped the top of his hat with his ethereal chain Trapt coiled around each of his forearms.

"Yo!" REO greeted. "How you doin'?" REO looked between the two on the roof, saw the clutter from the previous battle, and then saw Brad's Stand out in the open, shadowing its user's movements and motions to the slightest twitch. "Jojo, you need some help with this guy?"

"Huh?" Jojo grunted. He looked between REO's arms and Brad's battle-ready stance and came to the quickest conclusion possible, trying to break up the fight that was surely about to erupt. "Wait, no! REO, we aren't fighting anymore!"

"Of course not!" REO shouted as he began his short charge. "You don't have a Stand, remember!? This guy's been taking advantage of your weakness!" Brad made the split decision to activate his powers and retreat. In that split moment REO swung his chain-wrapped fist and hit air. Jojo stepped back in surprise. Brad was gone, simply and utterly gone, with barely any trace that he was there aside from the wisp of dust he left from his feet.

"Over here!" Brad shouted from a nearby, higher roof. He stood with his arms crossed, heels balancing him at the precipice that led to a fatal fall, and looked arrogantly down at them both.

_Teleportation?_ Jojo thought. _Maybe...but that's too convenient. Think. His power before was transmitting kinetic energy. Now that he has a Stand...That's it!_ "Super speed, right?" Jojo proclaimed, pointing his thick arm up. "Your Stand gives you the ability to gather kinetic energy from the spinning of its wheels and then transfer it to your feet or hands or anywhere else!"

"It does!?" Brad exclaimed, leaning forward. He looked at his Stand, examining the wheels, and decided it would be best to test it. He looked around for an object to use, any small can or similar piece of trash, but this roof was as clean as a business-owned roof could be. To keep the looks on par with the other private apartments, this roof had just recently been cleaned, perhaps before the epic blackout last night. Still, he looked around, flipping and rolling over the low structures that got in his way.

"What's he doing!?" REO exclaimed. "Running away!?" REO was about to make an advance for the roof with his chains, preparing to grapple his way in pursuit, but was stopped by Jojo's arm.

"Give it a rest!" Jojo said, flashing the glasses in his hand. "I've got what I needed and he's just a kid. In fact, he just got his Stand a few minutes ago when I accidentally activated it!"

"You did?" REO asked. "How?"

"Acupuncture" Jojo said. REO palmed his face, without his chain, and then grabbed Jojo at both his shoulders.

"Well he's obviously got it under control" REO said slowly. "Why not try that on yourself?" Jojo cocked his eyebrows curiously, then went wide-eyed with excited surprise.

_Yeah_ Jojo thought..._Why not!?_"Found something!" Brad shouted as he picked up a small, emptied plastic cup. He found it wedged between two air-conditioning ducts in a dark and adventurously unseen little cranny. He held it in his hand, activated his Stand, and let the green phantom hand drift up from within his own, holding the cup in the wheel-adorned grip of Linkin Park's palm. Brad concentrated on his power as he had before, feeling a spinning sensation in the center of his body, his gravitational core rotating rapidly. His Stand's movements followed that. He opened his eyes and saw the wheels all over its body, except for the feet planted on the ground and the wheels that stayed steady holding the cup, spinning with incredible speed.

* * *

He finally saw his own power in action. As the wheels spun with blinding, grinding speed lines of glowing bright-green energy started coursing through the mechanical body all the way to its right hand. All the energy of so many wheels spinning, all of them faster than Brad could measure, was transferred into the hand. Then the energy was blasted into the cup, all of it disappearing from the Stand's body, and Linkin Park aimed the cup into the side of the taller building to the side. Brad mimicked its movements and tensed his fingers outward, a signal he had already known was used to fire objects before. The cup exploded out, defying its own natural properties, and blew a chunk of solid concrete out of the side of the building it hit. Brad was so amused that he let a few moments pass and withdrew his Stand.

Obviously, his power still worked.

"WHOO-HOO!!!!" Brad shouted with extreme glee. He jumped up and up and did a standing fore-flip out of sheer, unyielding excitement, all over his own victorious show of power. He ran around in a short circle, laughing giddily as he did, and finally stopped to breathe. All the excitement of having a super-power gave him a headrush. He leaned over the edge of the high-risen wall which he had instinctively climbed up and looked down. He saw the empty street, all but dead from the abandonment the city-goers had caused it. In that sultry concrete sea he saw something break the solace, a single entity in a gray urban-camo sweatshirt and pants. They looked over their shoulder, in the direction of the block's biggest building, the office tower, then looked around in a hurry before running down the block.

"What the hell?" Brad said. He looked over and saw the front of the dull, gray building, an ugly toad-looking man from the long distance, and a girl frightfully backing away from him. Then a car **spontaneously appeared** out of nowhere as the ugly figure moved his hand away. Brad became not surprised or shocked or all that excited, but adapted a business-like disposition and sped across the roof to seek out Jojo and REO, who had already left. He saw then down in the alley and, further testing his new abilities and their limits, he jumped down, staying as close to the wall of the building as possible. As he dropped and gained speed, Linkin Park's wheels spun.

_When I just had the power_ he thought _I could stop myself from free-falling by transferring all my energy into a solid, stati object. As long as I can still do that I can harmlessly stop myself before I hit the ground._ He planned ahead, based on what he could see, and stopped himself by grabbing onto a jutting molding of light gray concrete going around the base of the building, some near ten feet above the ground. Linkin Park's wheels stopped and its phantasmal hand was gently placed onto the wall. It burst apart in a flurry of debris and dust. Brad could only stare straight ahead in shame as he knew what had happened. All that force hitting a static object all at once was akin to him falling straight into it. Thankfully, as he saw, it was only a small hole, just big enough to possibly install a new window so all that dust and debris could air out of the room.

Ashamed, he dropped down, landed on the border of a chain fence, rolled down onto a dumpster, pushed off of its edge and landed in a fast run, flawlessly transferring his energy to and fro to gain more speed with each second that he moved. Linkin Park stayed within a meter of him, the wheels always turning...

* * *

"Interesting, eh?" the seal-faced man said to the quivering, frightened girl. "I can turn objects invisible simply by touching them. Of course, I can't do that to myself, or any other living thing, but an inanimate object will turn invisible right before my eyes...!" Those hideous bulbs were now fixed on Erina, more specifically her dressy little skirt. He began walking forward, his very hand resonating with the same rippling illusionary effects that befall the eyes staring down the surface of hot pavement, a distortion of light in the air. "You don't know much about cars, girl...but I wonder...**what else you're wearing? Hmhmhmmm...**" His despicable humming laughter and reaching hand drove Erina off her wit's end. She no longer cared about being a statistic.

She just didn't want to get molested.

"**SUN FIST!!!**" Jojo roared. The man turned to the odd proclamation and got a powerful straight left shot to the side of his face. His skin was singed with the white-hot rage that Jojo poured into his fist, leaning his entire body into the shot as if to send the disgusting man so far away that he could never come back. He went quite a distance, alright, just far enough to satisfy Jojo's rage, all the way to the other side of the wide, round staircase leading up to the tower's main entrance. Erina was breathing heavily, her breath stolen first out of fear and now out of her wordless awe in Jojo's act of brave heroism. Jojo breathed, drawing his energy back within, and calmed himself down. He took the shades from his back pocket, unfolded them, and handed them off to their proper owner.

"You alright?" he asked, radiating with a natural light directly into her eyes. She couldn't speak, she could barely move, but what she could do was nod. Jojo smiled and placed the shades in her unconsciously open hand, then stood up and turned with glaring eyes back at the recovering body of the perverted assailant. "REO" Jojo called just as his friend came into scene beside him.

"Yeah?" REO asked.

"This guy" Jojo began with a grin "is the Stand user you are allowed to pummel."

"Gotcha" REO said, drawing his chain and wrapping it around his fist. The ugly man got up finally and glowered at them both, still holding his own face to try and soothe the constant burning feeling. He saw the two huge men he had to face alone...and set himself up to take the chances.

"You son of a bitch!" he growled, wiping his hand across his injured face. "I'll make you disappear!!!" He flashed both his hands out in front of his face and prepared for a fight. Jojo and REO were already waiting for the first attack, all while sweet civilian statistic Erina watched. And, of course, while Brad circled the block on winged heels to find his newly made friends...and to seek out that stranger in camoflague.


	35. Linkin Park 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo and REO stood in perfect stance, measuring up their grotesque foe. Erina sat away on the steps of the building, watching with building curiosity and anxiousness. Jojo's hands, to her, seemed to be glowing with a warm intensity, like two suns glaring through the clouds of a summer day, whereas REO's hands were bound in a mystical cloud, some arcane power that she couldn't describe. Each time he moved she heard chains clanking together.

"Come on" the ugly man beckoned. "I'll make you disappear!"

"Then come over here" Jojo proudly taunted "and do it!"

"Very well" he said. He grabbed his coat and pulled himself into it. His coat turned invisible and he disappeared. Jojo went on alert and REO did the same.

"I'll hit him" REO said. He began spinning Trapt over his head. Jojo ducked down and let the chain make a long, wide sweep around the area. Passed through the physical objects, looking for something more mental, but it found nothing. Then it latched itself, on instinct, into a telephone pole and began sending REO trivial information.

"Here I am!" his rough voice called. Jojo turned around and received a floating foot and leg to his stomach. It was nothing for him, a simple breeze against his body. He tensed his abs and stepped in with a roar, ready to pound his fist through the air!

"ORA!" His punch didn't connect with anything. He had thrown it above the leg but it seems that his enemy wasn't invisibly there.

"No, no" the man said, revealing himself below. "I'm down here!" Jojo looked down and received yet another leg, this time closer to his groin, and forced himself to retreat. REO snapped his chain loose and whipped it at the man who spun on his hunched back an rolled away with great speed, just like a perverse armadillo. "Huhuhu...you two have Stands too, at least you do. You may have a Sleeper Stand, boy." He pointed to Jojo.

"A what?" Jojo asked.

"A Sleeper Stand" the man explained "is a Stand that has yet to show its true for to its wielder but whose powers are still accessable. I have a Sleeper Stand at my disposal, and I was informed that another fledgling user might be near here."

_Brad_ Jojo thought. _I awakened a Sleeper Stand on accident, but this man was searching for him all along. I can only assume he was up to no good..._ "What did you intend to do with him?" Jojo demanded, holding himself in a higher authority than he actually had.

"Oh" the man groaned "that's not for you to know!" He disappeared inside his coat once more and began to move about. Jojo realized just how much open distance there was between him and any other obstacle. He had all the space he could want to use right now. However, utilizing his Joestar instincts, he naturally determined just where that man was going. He made a dash for Erina.

"REO!" Jojo called. "Protect Erina!"

"You got it!" REO said. He swung his chain up in an arc that came down behind Erina. He then began tugging and whpping it so the chain encircled her.

"What's this?" the man said, appearing at her side with lecherously reaching hands. "A barrier? OF chains?"

"ORA!!" Jojo called, this time connecting with a dashing kick to the man's ugly face. Erina was in shock. The rush of peril and danger all around her sent hot chills up and down her spine. She watched the spectacle further unfold as Jojo rushed in to make an even more powerful attack, revving both his arms back to shoot forward with him primal power and speed.

"You little runt!" the man groaned. He rolled away and invisibly retreated into an alley. Jojo could tell that he still moved by the rolling trail of dirt and dust he picked up. Once the enemy was properly gone REO retreated his chains and Jojo picked Erina up by her shoulders.

"I think" Jojo began "it's safe to assume that it isn't quite safe here." Erina nodded. "Head back to campus. I'll meet up with you later. REO, are you staying here?"

"Of course I am" REO said. "You ain't gonna have all the fun."

"Can you make it back alright?" Jojo asked.

"Yes" Erina answered. "I mean, I guess so. I just need to pick up some gas and I should be okay. But what about you, Jojo? Will you be able to fight him?"

"Of course" Jojo said, breaking away heroically. "A Joestar never quits. He only finds a new way to win. I'll be back before dark." His stern resolve ripple through the air, riding the waves of the sun, and sent a confidant grin to Erina's face. She equipped her newly recovered shades and ran for her car.

"Don't you disappoint me!" Erina called just before screeching off. REO and Jojo watched her go, making sure she didn't encounter any unpredictable obstacles on the street, then they went off into the alley to pursue their hideous foe. Erina drove out with her heart racing in fear and excitement. That mystical battle of unknown powers had elevated her senses of danger and panic to entirely new levels. Now she rode on with that incredible rush, only to stop as her car began blaring a warning from its computer-recognition motion-detection software.

"_Object ahead! Object ahead!_" Erina looked to confirm. The street was perfectly empty. Still, those numbers of feet kept counting down, a sure warning that Erina would crash into something. Being ever the careful girl she stopped and tapped against something in the road. That something soon fell over and clanked hard against the ground. Erina looked around, trying to piece what there may have been without getting out of her car. Then she noticed the street lamps.

_One of them is missing_ she thought. She compared both sides of the street, counting the columns, and then realized as the fallen street lamp came back into existence what had happened. _That man...he's trying to trap me! He turned it invisible and dropped it in the street!_ Erina was shocked. Not so much by the fact that it had been invisible, but the fact that a single man was able to fall a solid metal object so quickly...

* * *

Gliding along at incredible speeds, Brad grounded himself in the proper use of his powers while searching for the mysterious figure in urban camo. He felt that Jojo would take on the other mystery and hopefully unlock it in a timely manner. Linkin Park, Brad's newly formed Stand, was always within a meter of him, and when he wanted to use one of its unique wheels that part sank into Brad's body with said wheel protruding out. Right now the wheels on his feet that drove him up and down the block were the only wheels actively spinning. All the inertia that he gathered as he moved was transferred into the wheels, making them spin. All he had to do was lean forward to the point where his balance would fail and he would begin moving and the wheels did the rest on their own.

He was fall proof. As a parkour master, he now had absolutely no weakness.

_This is amazing!_ Brad thought. _I feel lightheaded, it's so cool! I can barely breathe, it's so cool! I feel like I could fly!!!_ Brad's thoughts were cut short as he clipped a sharp corner. He saw a quickly retreating figure a few blocks down. The urban camo he wore ironically stood out among the colorful buildings he ran past now. Brad smirked and set himself up to give chase. He started sprinting first, gathering up his energy, then transferred it all into his heels and his right knee. He placed that knee as close to the ground as his right heel was and started gliding along with a wind-whipping speed.

"Holy shit!" Brad exclaimed. "I'm actually flying! HAHAHA!!! WHOOO!!!" Brad was indeed hovering at impressive speeds, pursuing the mystery man who fled not because he was spotted but because he was recalled.

"Damn them" he growled in his low, rough, urban voice. "That punk thinks he can just order me around like his bitch boy. Talk about sympathy for the devil, but is this what Musalini had to deal with when he was getting slapped around by Hitler!?" The man ducked into an alley to catch his breath and pulled out a medical inhaler to aid. He took a few sharp, deep breaths and his breathing calmed down. "Fuck him..." He drew his hood back and rubbed the back of his head. It was Starski, leering from the corner of his eye to peer down the dark and dirty alley, then to the side to view the street across from his current position.

_Someone's following me_ Starski realized. He drew his hood up with a grin and pressed his back to the wall. _Bitch, get ready for a beating. I've got enough rage to start a war!_ Starski assumed his chaser was closer to his height in running than was reality. Starski waited for the presence he felt to draw closer, then turned the corner and tried to clip his neck with a clothesline move. He nearly tripped over Brad who had lost his straight advantage and was now wavering and weaving to keep his balance. _What the!?_

"Oh, shit!" Brad shouted. "_Merde!_" he cursed in French. Linkin Park came through and drew out all of its available wheels to catch Brad before he hit the fast-moving sidewalk. His elbows and hands and forearms and even his back were protected and instead of tumbling and falling over himself he merely rolled until he lost his inertia. Then he softly hovered onto the ground and got himself up, brushing off the dust and clutter from racing so close to the ground. "Whew! Now I know how an F1 racer feels!" Brad looked over and saw his target, the man wearing white camo, and smirked. His quarry was closer than he expected. "Hi there! I almost lost you!"

"Oh?" Starski casually grunted, thrusting his fists into his hoodie pouch. "You were trying to get my attention? Sorry, kid. Sometimes I tend to drift off. What'd you want?"

"I wanna know" Brad began "whatever you know..." Brad showed him his apparent weapon, a cola can fresh from the ground. Starski raised a judgmental eyebrow to his choice of weaponry and wondered just what he was going to do with it. Assuming that his target was Stand-sentient to a level on a whim, Brad placed the can between his palms and discretely activated Linkin Park's kinetic cannon ability, gathering up spontaneous inertia from the wheels all over the Stand's hidden form.

_Is he jokin?_ Starski wondered, staying calm. _I can see it from here. In any case..._

"Hey punk!" Starski suddenly shouted. "I ain't got time for you, a'ight? I know what I know, and whatever you want to know is something you'll have to figure out for yourself. I'm outta here." Starski tugged on the drawstrings of his hood and activated his Stand, the Jet-turbined Run D.M.C. He began drawing in air from the intake gills on his back and the leg turbines began spinning. "I'm glad no one's around to see this, that's for sure."

"What will you do?" Brad asked. He had finally amassed enough energy to either debilitate or totally cripple Starski with a well-enough placed shot and made the motions to fire. "Run from me? No one runs faster than me!" Brad threw his palms out in a bloom. The can exploded from the energy into a wide-spread shot of sharp metal shards. Starski exploded from the ground, trying to dodge, but got clipped by the aluminum shrapnel at high speed and lost his concentration.

"Uwah!" Starski shouted. He had lost control of his Stand and the elegant motions he was about to make for his escape and began plummeting down from over forty feet up. Brad looked at his hands in wonderment, then snapped from his delusional excitement and watched Starski fall. He rushed over as fast as he could, positioned himself to catch, and activated his Stand. "Move, fool! We're both gonna die!"

"No we won't!" Brad shouted with a cocky grin. "**Inertia is relative to me!**" Starski didn't understand until the last second. Brad caught him in his arms and all the impact energy that would have otherwise shattered Starski's body shattered the cement block they both stood on instead, the wheels of Linkin Park revving faster than Brad could measure to transfer the spontaneous energy into the ground safely. A nearby car alarm was set off from the shaking tremor. A streetlight some blocks over fell over.

* * *

"Alright" Starski began, out of breath once again. Brad had placed him carefully on a bus bench so he could recover from the terror of free-falling from a deadly height. Brad rested on top of the bench, sitting on its back with his feet on the seat, like a parkour master should."You want the short version, or the version where I kick you in the balls and run?"

"The short please" Brad said.

"I work for a man" Starski began "named Dio. A real rude and dictating mother-fucker. He's trying to get on the up-and-up to be the big-bad top boss of the city. He took over my gang, the Lovebugs, for his ambition to be some kind of underworld overlord."

"Cool" Brad said. "It's like some kind of mafia novel. The young upstart trying to rise to the top."

"He's already there!" Starski exclaimed as he shot up from the bench. "He's badder than any of the guys in this town. His Stand...man, I can't even describe it. It's powerful, it's evil, it's just a monster in all black. Words escape me. He's a fucking powerhouse. I can't think of anyone that could be able to stop him. I couldn't." Brad was kicking his legs, taking in the information and piecing it together in his own mind, in his own way. He reached his usual arrogant conclusion after only a moment of passive thought and hopped down onto the sidewalk.

"Maybe I could" he said.

"HA!" Starski shouted. "You'd die so quick your balls would just up and leave to look for someone who isn't as much of an embarrassment."

"_Quoi?_" Brad said in confusion.

"Trust me" Starski said as he got up. "You ain't tough enough to stand up to Dio. I wasn't, and I'm a hell of a lot tougher than you!"

"Said the man with the inhaler" Brad said, tossing Starski's device up and down flauntingly. Starski was shocked for a moment as to how he stole it almost straight from his own hands, but his rage clouded his curious mind as he snatched it back from out of the air.

"I got a condition!" Starski defended. "I got weak sinuses!" Brad chuckled to himself, amused with his own antics. _How'd he do that? Is it part of his power...? No, that ain't it. He's just a pickpocket punk._ "Anyway...my mission's over. I was sent to report on a Sleeper Stand user that may be rolling with a rival crew."

"Sleeper Stand?" Brad asked.

"That's when" Starski began "you have Stand powers without having an actual Stand. It's basically the first natural part of Stand evolution. That's how mine developed. At first I could heat air like a soldering iron, then I got my actual Stand after I kept using my Stand power. It just evolved all at once." Brad looked at his arm and the phantom arm next to it. That curious echoing movement that rippled through the air with its mysterious presence, his Stand.

_Sleeper Stand...?_ Starski was already off, walking down the sidewalk. "Hey, wait! Wait a sec!" Starski turned gruffly as Brad flipped effortlessly over a trashcan to get to Starski.

"Damn" Starski awed briefly.

"I'm not with any crew" Brad explained "that I know of, but my friend Jojo might be fighting that other Stand user! You see, I had a Sleeper Stand, just the power, until just a little while ago when Jojo used some weird move on me!"

"Jojo?" Starski asked. His mind recalled Dio's nostalgic voice as he said those words. Jojo. Short for Johnathan Joestar, of course. That young man that openly stood up to and raged against Dio in his own base. "He's here?"

"I think he's fighting that other Stand user" Brad said. "I mean, he was when I last saw him. I think he was going to fight him. Now he could still be fighting or, more likely, he's already done." Starski scoffed angrily and looked around in a panic.

"Shit" Starski said. "Fate's testing me. I ain't got time for this shit. Listen kid, I'm gonna let what you told me slide, alright? I don't need to know any of that and neither does Dio. Just get yourself out of here, maybe go back and do something over there, but don't follow me, alright!? Just forget you ever saw me, too! You'll be saving both of us, trust me!" Leaving Brad stunned with confusion, Starski began running briskly down the street and engaged his Stand, this time taking off and ascending with jet-turbine power onto the rooftops to make his way through the friendly, open skies to his base.

_What was he talking about?_ Brad thought. _Just forget about it and I'll save us both? Fate is testing him? What kind of weird guy was he? And this Dio? I've never heard of him. Is he really all that?_ Brad heard a car nearly crash. Loud, screeching skids form Erina's sports convertible as she ripped across the roads, looking for a section of the street that wasn't blocked by invisible barriers. Brad activated his Stand, remembering to keep his output of energy low lest he blow something else up, and began his skating run down the road to help in whatever way he could. However, all those strange thoughts and questions continued to linger about in his head, annoyingly tapping at the inside of his skull with their sharp, inquisitive fingers...


	36. Linkin Park 4

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo and REO ran at full speed through the alley, chasing after the hunched old man as he rolled away invisibly. Jojo had his fists charged with sun energy while REO's chain Trapt clanked and shook metallicly in his tight grip. The trail of dust that the man's back kicked up suddenly stopped as he had made a leap upward. Jojo and REO both stopped to consider their options, alone in a dark alley, chasing a stranger who had controlled invisibility over objects, only now becoming aware of all the dangers that were around them. Broken bottles, discarded syringes, diseased clumps of random garbage scattered all over the ground. Any one of these things could be turned invisible with a touch of the man's finger and set up as a trap, totally unseen on the ground.

"Shit" REO said. "He's got us in a corner now!" Jojo kept his breathing up and brought on an angry, dark, furrowed brow to his handsome face. He brought one fist up shaking to his eye level, pulsing visibly with the powerful Ripple energy that was channeled through his entire body and into his one, extended index finger tip.

"Concentration" Jojo growled "is a key element of energy. Light is more destructive as a laser then as a wide-spread beam. The white-hot intensity of the sun, all of it concentrated into a fine point, a finger tip full of explosion!" Jojo stomped his feet to the ground and raised his finger above his head like a deadly weapon, pointing straight down at the ground. REO stepped aside, making sure his feet to make sure he hit nothing invisible, and went as close to the wall as he could.  
"UuuuoooooOOOOHHHH!!!!!!" Jojo roared. He thrust his finger down and drove it straight through the solid concrete ground. **"YELLOW OVERDRIIIIVE!!!"**

All the dust exploded from the ground, cleaning the alley instantly of all the dangerous debris. Concentric circles appeared in the air as the dust coagulated into the life-energy waves that traveled through the open air, sending everything away from the point of manipulation, the center of the sun-explosion where Jojo slowly withdrew his unmarred hand to gaze up at his newly cleansed surroundings. The man appeared overhead, his invisibility deactivating in the wake of such energy, and moved up the escape ladder he had so expertly hid in retreat.

"What the hell!?" REO shouted. "He knew we'd concentrate on the ground so he went up!"

"He knew what we would think" Jojo added "if we knew his power and examined our surroundings...he knew we wouldn't think of looking up!"

"That's right!" the man shouted. "I'm one step ahead of you whipper-snappers already!"

"I didin't know that phrase still existed" REO admitted aside to Jojo.

"Zeppeli used it occasionally" Jojo remarked. "I thought anyone else who would use it would be dead by now." The old man's seal-like face twisted and contorted with anger at the ignorance and disrespect these two young men were blatantly showing him. To that end he continued his retreat, drawing his coat over his exposed body and using his ability on it. He turned invisible once more and began running on the stairwell.

"Come on, Jojo!" REO exclaimed. He spun his chain around, preparing it for a grappling throw, but Jojo threw his arm in front to stop him.

"Wait a second" Jojo said. "He isn't going anywhere! Look!" Jojo pointed up through the swirling, stagnant dust to the approximate area where the man had vanished from. The dust that was kicked up from Jojo's Overdrive did not follow in any trail or part from any moving body. Instead it just moved erratically at the constant foot-stomps that the man made as he invisibly jogged in place.

"Dammit!" the man shouted, canceling his spell once more. "You're cheating somehow, aren't you kid!? Tell me the truth!!!"

"Oh, no" Jojo said, his eyes full of a glaring, dangerous resolve. "I'm not cheating at all. I can't even use my Stand because it's so unruly and won't listen to me and I'm still managing to keep up with you. You're just slow."

"Yeah, old fogey" REO added, looking up with equal disdain and a nefariously curled lip. "Can't'cha keep up with us young ruffians?" REO summoned his Stand to his right hand, stepped forward with his right leg and punched up with his right arm fully extending forward. The chain shot out, aimed at the old man, and missed to attach into the wall just as the old man dove off the ground and out of the way. Before Jojo could see him impact upon the ground he vanished. No dust was kicked up from the impact, though there seemed to be plenty to be moved from an impact. Jojo began running over, soon joined by REO who ran at his side.

"Is he dead?" REO asked.

"He's turned invisible" Jojo explained. "I can't tell if he's alive or--" Wire-mesh fence. The two had hit a solid wire-meshed fence that the old man caught and hung off of. He turned it visible after a few moments, making sure the boys were embarrassed enough, then hopped down and retrieved a rope. He threw the rope through a bigger hole in the fence, swung and looped it around both boys, then grabbed it from the other end and tied it together.

"Ha!" the old man laughed. "Serves you right, youngn's! Don't underestimate me just because I'm an old man! HmmHAHAHAHAAAHMMM!!!" The old man left them there to solve their own dilemma. Jojo straightened his hand and heated his hand to try and cut through the rope. REO, however had a knife.

"I got this..." REO said with great embarrassment and shame.

"Alright..." Jojo replied, equally ashamed of himself. "I guess he anticipated this, too."

"Yeah, I guess he did" REO snapped back, irked over his face being pressed into a wire-mesh wall.

* * *

The warning light was flashing again. This time Erina was tempted to ignore it and ram into whatever random invisible object was in her way, but her car was valuable and she had already stolen it away from the clutches of one strange and deluded old man. She didn't want to have to deal with him again if she could help it. She stopped slowly, got out of her car by slamming the door shut and felt around for the object. Once she got it she pushed it and the street-light began to slowly topple over, becoming visible just as it loudly smashed into the street. Erina recoiled in shock and retreated to her car, trying to feign ignorance despite being the only person on the street to do such a thing.

"Shit" Erina cursed. She began slamming her palms against the edges of her steering wheel. "Shit! Shit! SHIT SHIT SHIT!!! What's with all these fucking streetlights!? Who keeps knocking them over!? What's more, how are they invisible!!!???" Her frantic shouts just drifted up into the sky, down the street and into oblivion. She buried her head into the soft pillow of her forearms folded together and stared down at her feet below the wheel. She waited a few moments in silence, hopefully for good news to come her way, but nothing happened. That silence, and her meditative state of sadness, were seiftly broken by something soft landing on the hood of her car. She looked up and saw a young man dressed in green with a smug grin aimed her way.

"Yo" Brad greeted. He kicked his legs up and fell down with them crossed in his lap, creating virtually no impact as he landed, storing the inertia and kinetic energy up in his inactive Stand, Linkin Park. "Sorry I took your glasses earlier. I thought they were prescription, or something. A girl like you should know it's in bad taste to drive around on a muggy day like today and still wear sunglasses." Erina just stared up at him, her shades coincidentally on, and gawked at his audacity. She had half a mind to pounce on him from over the windshield, her roof was retracted which granted her the ability, but she refrained to give him a better benefit of doubt.

"It's bright" she argued. "Humid or not...it's bright out today." Brad just chuckled at her reply and grinned as he crossed his arms. "Hey...where's Jojo? He was the big, burly guy wearing blue I sent after you. And the blonde guy in a bowler derby, Robert, did you see him too?"

"Yeah" Brad answered. "I apologized to them for you, but now that you're here I can do that personally." He clapped his hands in front of his face and leaned forward in a relaxed bow. "Sorry about that! I didn't know what I was getting into!" Brad kicked his legs and expertly spun off the hood of the car and onto his feet before the toppled streetlight. Linkin Park summoned itself, hands drawn back and shaking with the tension of the gathered energy, and kept in step with its user as they approached the streetlight.

_Alright_ Brad began internally. _I fell a total of three stories without tumbling. I thought my legs would break at some point, but I'm alright. All the energy was stored in Linkin Park up until now. I may as well help out however I can. _"Hey, is this thing in your way?" Brad asked as he pointed casually at the street light.

"Don't tell me" Erina began in disbelief "that you're gonna move that thing, kid. It's not likely. It would take a piece of lifting machinery to move that thing."

"An object at rest" Brad began "tends to stay at rest until the element of energy is introduced. Then, as if by divine intervention, **it will move.**" Brad calmly placed a hand upon the streetlamp and a rush of energy tore through his body, channeling through the hands of Linkin Park as it slammed the street light off the road, off the side of a building and back into the street on the opposite side. Brad awed with a gaping mouth at the results of his own tremendous, untested power and twitched his fingers slightly.

_A bit overboard, eh pal?_ He said to his Stand. Its energy spent, Linkin Park returned from whence it came just as Erina began peeling out. Brad looked back, seeing only his movement options as the car came at him, and jumped up. He slammed his palms down onto the hood of the car, rolled over the windshield and switched positions in mid-air to a low crouch in the back seat where he sprang out and landed in a tucked roll to reduce his momentum before finally standing back up to watch the crazed girl speed off.

"Thank you!" Erina called. "We're even now from when you stole my glasses! Bye!" As Erina waved Brad couldn't help but feel an odd liking to her. She was that kind of approachable woman who, even though she nearly ran him over with her car, he wanted to befriend.

"Crazy bitch" he uttered. He then went off on a tangent in French and attempted to silently summon his Stand. It didn't work. Thinking the recent excess of energy spent was keeping his Stand from optimal performance, Brad snapped his fingers together and whistled. "Linkin Park, let's go." Still, no Stand. Brad had become worried now. He tried to channel kinetic energy again, running in place and trying to gather that force into his hand, the natural way he had always known how to do...but still, **his powers refused to work!**Now that their minor, embarrassing ordeal was over, Jojo and REO departed over the fence and out into the sidewalk. Jojo looked around in a panic, his brow twitching very visibly under the stress and duress of catching this villainous character. REO jogged up to keep up with him and reached a comfortable standing position just as Jojo ran off down the block.

* * *

"Hey!" REO shouted, trying in vain to get his attention. "Wait up, man!" No reply. Jojo was on a mental rampage. "Alright...let's split up..." he muttered to himself. He began running off in the other direction when he caught sight of the man, just his shoes static at the corner, the rest of his body carefully cloaked. REO activated his Stand, swung it at his side to build momentum and then threw it straight forward. His chain sailed down the block, went straight over the shoes and hooked to the traffic light post across the street.

"He ain't there!?" REO exclaimed. From behind the nearly silent sound of sweaty bare feet patting on the hot concrete perked REO's ears. He turned around but blacked out before he could catch sight of what was there. The strange, stout man had carried a swing with a lead pipe through to REO's head. Now he was at the advantage and began laughing over REO's proud, injured body.

"HMMHMMHMM!!!!" he bellowed. "Not so tough are you now, little boy? Stands aren't business for such an inexperienced little 'whipper-snapper' like you! You little runt! Piss-ant!" The old man stopped bouncing around in celebration and looked over his hunched shoulder. With no one around he took off his drearily heavy trench coat and straightened his back. **It was as if he had grown over a full foot.** "Phew...that was annoying..." Now with a deeper, younger and much more mysterious voice the man took his elongated arm to his face and **ripped it off.** A simple mask was all. Now, standing at his full height over six feet, thin and lanky arms and legs with incredible exposed definition. His face, however, was still covered.

"These guys" the man began, crossing his arms and leaning back "aren't all that. The other guy, though....he's dangerous. I should keep a close eye on him. He's a contract that I'd rather not have to carry out." The man looked down at REO and stole his hat, placing it upon his head that remained wrapped with **green and blue belts.** "Thanks, pal" Trip said, tipping the brim up just a bit with a tap of his finger. His Stand, Smoke on the Water, zoomed out from his back and hovered just over the ground behind him, its perfectly smooth and crystalline body shimmering in the sunlight. It threw its arms out and gathered up the shards of reflective and refractive mirrors that it had spread out to cover his tracks with the toppled street-lights in all the streets. The panels that came back to him formed around its back and then snapped tightly back into place.

"Nicely done" Trip said with a nod. "That job's over, at least. Three confirmed Stand users within the Joestar cloister. Jojo himself is, somehow, unable to freely manipulate his Stand, though it is fully developed. The kid's Sleeper Stand is now fully active, and this one's is basically just a chain. Information gathered, job done...time for food." Trip, using his indominable athletic strength, turned around, rand through the alley even with his exposed, bare feet and jumped up fro mthe wire-mesh fence to the fire escape to ascend the rest of the way to his escape on the rooftops.

"GAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!" screamed a familiarly stern young voice. Trip turned his head at an instant and stopped in his tracks, trying to trace the voice.

"What was that...?" he asked. Another roar, much more painful than before, and the screehcing of tires.

"UAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" Trip summoned his Stand, SotW, and extended a hand in the voice's general direction. The Stand sent a line of thin mirrors out in that direction, all of them reflecting off of each other, leading the visual information of whatever the first one viewed. It positioned the mirrors along the corners of the walls and led them down to observe what was producing those strange, painful screams on the sidewalk. There lay Jojo at the mercy of his suddenly summoned renegade Stand, The World, clutching his chest on his knees while the nefarious demon stood above him glowering and grinning.

"It must be out of control" Trip realized. He watched closely from the thin panel and observed all that happened down there. The World walked over, picked Jojo up by his hair, ignoring his painful cries of protest and gave him another stern punch to the gut. Jojo held in his breath and clenched his jaw in pain. The World just smiled until it drew its hand back. Now there was a burning glow that infected the Stand, a fire from the suddenly manifested Sun Ripple Jojo had stored up and released through his abdomen.

"Heh" Jojo laughed. He was triumphant, even if it was for only a moment, and The World turned its back to him with a swing of its fist to disengage the Ripple. The World disappeared after that, unwilling to engage its own user any further, and Jojo looked at his hand. It was red, pulsing with a burning, feverish sensation of so much blood running to it, and his finger tips seemed swollen up with the blood. He held it out away from his face and began his healing breathing to try and calm it down somehow. His hand seemed to slowly deflate as blood was drawn away and back into his body. SotW could no longer keep its illusion up and retrieved the mirrors. Trip was panting.

"I guess that's all for today" he said. "I can only keep using shit like that for about an hour, and I started way before these guys showed up. I hope that girl finds her way out, too. I did do some pretty hectic things to the street to keep anyone from leaving." Trip, with his job ultimately completed, began his departure once more. He made his way across the rooftops to a bridge that he had previously made invisible leading to an open window in the office complex that he had originally replaced with one of his own. He ran across that sturdy, thin bridge on the toes of his articulately defined feet and ran into the empty building.

"My client will be happy to know all this" Trip said, thinking out loud. "Now, what do I want to eat today? I think...something with both chicken and cheese. Maybe I'll have a chicken pizza or some Chicken Parmesan. Looks like its Italian!" With that eager thought in mind, Trip departed, leaving yet more mysterious unsolved. Who was he working for? What of Brad's newly found and newly absent powers? Can Jojo and The World unite? The dark forces that encroached upon the city and Jojo all seemed to be lingering just behind such questions, and as each is answered the true masked villain behind all of these ruses and demonic manipulations will be reveled...

* * *

Far away from the eyes of humans, in a catacomb bellow the cellars of a prestigious and venerable city, inside a room where no breath had been taken in centuries, there stirred a sudden clatter of metallic tools. From a flat stone tablet formerly occupied by a regaled corpse wrapped up in the finest garments of its living time there lay a body alive and stirring healthily. The old and dusty floor had been recently stained with the fresh, wet blood of said body, though not without sound purpose. Inside that room, beside the stone table where the body lay, there had been gathered a short selection of medical tools and a 'bio-hazardous materials' disposal bin that had been just sealed off from whatever was within.

In the darkness there was stir of something much darker, the nebulous flowing hair from the head of a womanly figure, a Venus sitting up and drawing in her first breaths of air from the stagnancy of the dead air.

"It tastes unpleasant" she said with a toneless inflection. She ran one of her hands through her dark hair and moved off the side of the table to stand. In the corner of this desolate room swung the metronomic tail of a cat whose only visible feature besides its wagging black tail was its large, piercing yellow eyes. "This air...what flavor is this air...?"

"Human" the cat said in a deep, coy voice, ending its human word with a smirk that shook the darkness with its flashing whiteness. She stood up and continued mussing with her hair, running hand and finger through and through it, seductively shifting from foot to foot, moving her exposed hips to a rhythm all in her head. Suddenly, from her hair there fell something that landed behind her with a thud. Curious, she turned around and saw a rotted, green hand. She turned even further and leaned over the hand so that her long and waving hair covered her nude body from the sides. The hand twitched slightly and seemed to almost be reaching out to grab onto something. As if knowing how to handle such a strange incident already, the woman gave the hand a strand of her hair. The hand latched on and began the task of climbing it with the shifting of finger to finger.

"I've done what you wanted" she said, crossing her arms to hold up her bosom and standing with her right toes arched at the heel of her left foot. "Now...tell me what I want to know. Don't hold back, either. I need all the information I can get."

"You have exceeded my expectations" the cat announced crawling out of the darkness and disappearing. Thought it was gone its voice still lingered and spoke in a perverse delicacy toward her. "I will tell you in person. Meet me back where we started and I shall guide you to your destiny..." She looked back at the sealed tomb door which slid open precariously, as if by the careful hands of curious humans from the outside.

"How can I trust you?" she asked. The voice was already gone, but her freedom came to her swiftly. The light of artificial fires hit her pale skin and stung her eyes. The blood-soaked tools and rims of the plastic container across the bloodied table all glimmered with their nasty red light. Her deep, dark eyes and beauteously womanly features turned to the men wearing protective suits for their expedition and she smiled at them with her full, curled lips.

"What the hell!?" a very British scholar with a thick mustache exclaimed. "Young miss, who are you? What are you doing here!?" She just kept smiling. A taller man forced the tomb door open the rest of the way and peered within. His eyes drifted away from her face as she turned plainly towards them both, a lustful smile and a fully exposed, beautiful body on a proud display. The only movingly shocking feature she sported was a terrible cut sewn together, **running across her navel and then down from the middle to her crotch**, ending abruptly just above her vaginal region.

"I" she spoke "am an angel, come to you to set you free of your sins..." Her cryptic words and seductive voice hypnotized the men, and with the batting of her eyelashes both men found home. Blood splattered everywhere. Skin was flayed from muscles which was pulled from bone. Organs were crushed instantaneously and brains imploded as the skulls of both men foamed forth with some utterly disgusting sickness that leaked from their decapitated skulls. A mysterious shadow, wriggling with tentacles, appeared behind the woman and wrapped itself around her, providing her cover and lifting her off the ground. Her hair began moving on its own, like nebulous fire, and the green of her eyes became a sharp and deadly black.

Within that container of 'bio-hazardous materials' was the womb of a woman abandoning humanity. MUSE rose up and glided across the stone floor with her Stand carrying her the length of the way. An angel indeed...


	37. Dio's Dementia

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The stirring darkness enveloped him and brought him a motherly comfort. In the dark red mist he floated, an ethereal vessel containing inhuman wisdom and beauty, the egg of a God. Such were the delusions within Dio's dreaming mind, brought about by his own perseverance to create the world he always wanted. He looked around in his hovering shell of safety and saw the fleshy walls that gave him the widest breadth of movement. The clear fluid with the reflection of bloody red filled his lungs with an ecstasy he had always known and soon thereafter forgotten in his waking. He swam about in circles and made motions to pull himself along with his strong arms until he saw a light up at the peak of his world. Naturally, he obeyed his human curiosity and swan to that hole, bursting out of a liquid surface face first to look around.

He found himself afloat in an ocean of tossing blood and bodies, most of which he recognized through their rotted features as clones of his own father. Dio grinned and began swimming in wide, strong strokes toward shore. At the shore stood a figure, much like himself, standing in that haughty and godly manner of leaning back on the balls of his feet with one arm cradling the other at his chest, a hand in front of his face. A visage of death wearing the darkest black under the brightest gold. Dio was gleeful with envy. He wanted to meet a man who held such a form, and swam faster.

Once his feet touched the shore the dead arms of the corpses slapped against his perfect skin and attempted to drag him back into the tossing and churning waves just as the blood sea got violent. Dio shone like a god in the light of his euphoric little world, his skin reflecting the light of the heavens ten times greater than it was delivered. The beauteous god-man began a slow turn around around, keeping his hand in front of his face, while Dio stood and waited with an arrogant, expecting grin and posture to see his own face.

"We're dead, you know" the godly man said. Dio raised an eyebrow and lost his stance. His arms drifted down past his naked hips as the man made a full turn around to reveal his **skinless mouth and skeleton teeth, steel colored and stained with blood. **"We're all dead...on the inside." Dio grabbed at his head and held it in to keep it from bursting as his most sinister side pulled the carpet of his world out from under him. Now floating in darkness he looked up to behold the jagged maw and featureless face of his black Stand, System of a Down occupying his entire sky.

"You..." Dio growled, showing his forceful entity nothing but contempt. "You are the worst. You casually and passively obey me when I'm awake, but in my dreams you haunt and torment me with your constant games! I'm sick of this! Leave me be when I sleep!"

"No" SoaD denied in its hollow, raspy-screeching voice. "You get no sleep. You have work to do. Make your world a reality, already, or go and die. **Rot away, Dio Brando!!!**" Dio's own contempt of his father, his self-hatred for his stained blood, had manifested itself in an awful way. With a wave of its black, clawed hand SoaD sent Dio tumbling through the void of his own mind and into the dark reaches of his madness to wake him up with a startling shock.

Dio sat straight up in his bed and began panting, unaware of his surroundings or of himself. He looked at his arm and concentrated. There it was, ever humoring him, the thin black arm of his Stand echoing and shadowing his own. Dio clutched his fist and felt the blood rushing into his arm. He had been out for days, it seemed, as evidence by the I.V. Preserving his life and the ragged gown he had been dressed down into. It was already afternoon and he was awake with three days of energy stored up. It simply wouldn't do for such a regal monster as he to waste an entire day he could otherwise dedicate to his manic goals. He rose out of bed and let fall the gown as he stood and basked in the sunlight that graced his humble, human body.

"I'm not a god yet, it seems" Dio said to the wall. The wall agreed silently and he walked across the room to a closet. In no time he was dressed up again, this time in much more casual wear of jeans and a tight T-shirt under a sports jacket and fussy, unstyled hair, and he exited his suite room to the more common room that Starski commonly occupied. The strong, stern, tall black man was busy vacuuming with a contagion mask and nose clip on. He gave Dio a quick glance that was met with a disgusted snarl and went on vacuuming while Dio made his way outside.

"Lord Dio!" a pale, mohawked warrior exclaimed. "You're awake!" Dio raised a hand to visor the sun, prompting one of his subordinates to rush over and shade his eyes with their own long arms. Rosalisa, who sat writing in her diary without looking at the motions of her pen, turned to her Lord Dio as he walked forward. Monkey Business popped up from her side and scampered across her satin-gowned lap to crouch and leer at Dio. The subordinate immediately left.

"Lord Dio..." Rosalisa whispered. Dio was staring intently at the creature that stared fearlessly back at him. It was a defiant creature staring down its own personified defiance, and a connection was made instantly.

"What is that?" Dio asked in honest curiosity. Rosalisa followed his vision to Monkey Business and ceased writing. Monkey Business hopped down to the ground and skittered and pawed its way across the ground to Dio's leg. It stood there and stared up at the common-clad man with the uncommon face and tilted its head.

"That is Monkey Business" Rosalisa explained. "He's a Stand User who can see into other people's thoughts and display them visually. He is your new pet. Do you dislike him?" Dio still hadn't decided that yet. Starski leaned out the doorway, watching closely the interaction between Dio and the little shit critter from hell, waiting for one of them to get hurt for his own amusement. Dio lowered his arm and jerked his wrist with a grin.

"Monsters like us" he said "need to stay close together." Monkey Business climbed up his arm and settled on his shoulder. Dio reached over, keeping his shoulder stiff, and scratched at the creature's scaly belly. Monkey Business hooted pleasurably to it. "I like him. He'll definitely prove useful to us in the future." Rosalisa, sufficed with an answer, turned back around to continue monitoring her writing. She looked down while Starski, off in the distance scowled and reentered the newly dusted room, to discover that she had written down each detail of the dialogue and concurrent actions within it. She blinked at this revelation, then continued writing casually.

* * *

The day wore on into the early evening, a time when Dio's men exhibited their unnatural insomniac energy and began stirring with a fervent anticipation for things and events to come. Dio lounged in the common room that had been so egregiously redecorated that he barely recognized it. In with him, staying a wide enough breadth from his selected throne against the farthest wall, were Starski who went about some mundane but constant business and Rosalisa who manipulated her Stand to control many of the inanimate objects in the room. As Evanescence clutched one of the stolen vases in its wide, paper-like finger tendrils Rosalisa wrote its commands in rapid scrawling while controlling the other nine objects at once. Dio watched her subjectively.

"Starski" Dio said, suddenly catching the old thug's attention. "Have we heard anything from Joestar and his inevitable ilk?"

"That Jojo kid?" Starski asked. "A day ago he was sent to the hospital. Got in a bad Stand fight, I think. Our informant couldn't get all the info, no background clearance past the first floor of the building." Dio lazily leaned his head into his fist and crossed his left leg over his right while Rosalisa began to struggle and sweat in her effort.

"Perhaps we should pay him a visit" Dio said, forming a spontaneous plan.

"You shitting me?" Starski asked. "How're you gonna find him? Even if you can fly and stab through solid glass and concrete with those claws of yours, I know you ain't looking in every window of the hospital, one by one, without stirring up some huge panic over a blonde-haired kid that can fly!" Dio grinned.

"I don't need to do that" Dio said. "I have the ultimate permissive force." Starski followed his gaze to Rosalisa who was now in a purely trance-like meditative state, controlling everything with only a few simply words.

_**Float. Float. Stay there and Float.**_ She wrote, commanding her Stand through its own convoluted method of working. Everything was calm and the objects were placed back on the display shelves and dressers and expensive desks recovered from some unguarded little shop one night while Dio was bed-bound. Rosalisa let out a long breath and de-summoned her Stand, noticing the gaze that was set upon her.

"Yes, Lord Dio?" she asked, turning right to him. Dio closed his eyes, stomped his feet to the floor and stood up.

"Put on something common" Dio commanded. "You and I are going to visit Jojo."

"Very well" she agreed. Starski looked back and forth between them, awed by the fluid exchange of orders, and went right back to turning a dial on the wall. What he manipulated looked like a thermostat with no readable gauges or visible dials aside from the tiny notched wheel that stuck out of the corner just enough to be moved along its set track. Dio watched him for a moment with a grin before turning around and heading out the door.

"I leave this place to you" Dio said.

"Sure" Starski said. Monkey Business came crawling into the room and took its place on Dio's seat. Starski didn't know but Dio had passed his position on to the monkey who brought in with him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Starski continued working the dial on the small box, absorbed in the task, while Monkey Business smoked like a French villain that had a curling scaled tail.

Dio waited outside, slowly walking to the designated area where his main casual transport waited. Rosalisa caught up with him in an outfit of tight jeans, a black-leather belt with a black rose at her hip, a short pink tee and a choker. Her hair was down and rolled onto her shoulders in waves. They never looked at each other when they marched to their tandem transport which Dio always let her drive. He liked leaning out the window and watching the human race pass by as insignificant blurs and she loved pandering to his whim.

"I have a premonition" Dio began, leaning back into the casual little car. "Jojo is a man of immense wealth and fame in this city. With the limited resources and disrepair befalling an inner-city hell such as this, the slumlords that take him in will undoubtedly be unwilling to part with him. I have a feeling we will need to go past the tenth floor to find him, but with his family curse of rotten luck he may end up somewhere close to the thirteenth floor."

"What makes you assume that, Lord Dio?" Rosalisa asked.

"Just a guess" Dio admitted. "I don't have the premonition abilities that you and Monkey Business seem to possess, I can just take guesses based on experience."

"I would agree with you" Rosalisa said. "I suppose we will just have to see where he is when we get there, assuming they let us see him."

"Of course they will" Dio said. "As long as you word yourself properly, there should be no problem." Rosalisa finally caught on to why she was going with him. She was a tool once more instead of a companion. Still, with the chance to prover herself even further to her gracious lord, she hadn't the reason to exactly complain. Besides, it was nice to be away from the men of the headquarters who avoided her like a plague due to her powers...

"What about other Stand users?" Rosalisa asked. "It is possible that we are not the only ones after Mr. Joestar. Starski said he was hospitalized in a Stand fight, after all."

"True" Dio granted "but that also means that his Stand has developed enough for him to _engage_ in a Stand fight. It's only been a few weeks since he visited us and he already has a Stand...I want to see the results of his tremendous growth first hand." His intent, while not entirely villainous, certainly peaked her suspicion.

"My Lord" she began, "are you going to kill him?" Dio stared straight ahead as they stopped in a construction zone, waiting to be flagged, the machinery loudly whirring as the lifts and cranes that were brought on sight lifted the downed streetlights from the street with great ease.

"We'll see" Dio said. "If it comes down to it...I may..." He draped his muscular arm out the window and summoned his Stand to lower its own black arm down and drag it just barely above the surface of the road. Its razor-sharp nail occasionally skid across the asphalt and hopped up from the force of the pebbles and loose debris that scattered around the road. He grinned and glanced out the side window. Rosalisa's hands tensed up on the steering wheel and she straightened up to glare ahead. They both felt it. The eyes of monsters at their backs.

Someone was watching them...

* * *

Upon their arrival to the civilian parking in the hospitals adjacent, connected parking garage, Dio and Rosalisa took the dark advantage and used SoaD to scan the surroundings for any traces of human presence. He used heat vision, night vision and a sight that tracked residual Stand-based energy. Nothing at all. The air and the floor was as clear as it was to his own eyes. Not a soul was looking in their direction with contempt. Few people looked at them at all, assuming nothing.

"Looks like they stopped" Dio said. Rosalisa set the car's alarm, being useful enough for transport that she wouldn't want it to get stolen once more, and began walking to the hospital entrance behind Dio. "Still...I suppose it is possible that they are already inside and waiting for us. I have a plan. I'll need you to discretely work on the receptionist to get us to Jojo's room while I try and weed out our potential stalker."

"Yes" she agreed. She took out her pocket-sized book and quickly fanned through the pages. "Oh no..." she said dejectedly. "I only have six pages left to write on."

"Write on the front and backs of the pages then" Dio said. That way you'll have twelve."

"That's what I do normally" Rosalisa explained. She had only three pages left to write on. Dio glanced over and scowled.

"You should have checked that before coming here" he said. "If worse comes to worse we can steal some lined paper to write on. It's a hospital, after all. It's unlikely that we won't be able to find some kind of paper to write on anywhere." Rosalisa silently agreed and went on with her quiet, methodical planning. The lobby they entered was full of depressed people sitting and waiting. A short line of three people stood between Dio and his goal. He lined up nonetheless and let Rosalisa prepare her ability. Evanescence stealthily extended a controlling, paper thin finger under the large, round reception desk station and reached the ankle of the jaded, bag-eyed nurse who worked as the receptionist.

"I think I have a Cancer sore on my cheek!" a manic bald man complained. "I need chemotherapy right away!" The nurse sighed and pointed him to another desk that would help him, though in reality she was trying to point him out the door. A middle-aged woman came up next while Dio and Rosalisa waited behind, Rosalisa at the ready to begin writing.

"I'm here to visit my mother" the woman said. "She's in room 1220." The nurse picked out a small clip-on tag and slid it onto the desk with a pen. The woman filled out her name on the tag with the pen and took it. Then the nurse gave her a short chart to read through and fill out which she did off to the side so Dio and Rosalisa could go next.

"Hello" Dio greeted in his most empathetical human voice. "I'm here to see my friend from college. I heard he was in some kind of fight. His name's Johnathan Joestar." The nurse stared blankly at him. Even the lady filling out her disclosure and liability form looked over at him.

"Joestar?" the nurse asked skeptically. "As in that billionaire? Just who are you to go and see him?" Rosalisa was writing away and the commands were sliding slowly down the finger and into her ankle.

"Like I said" Dio began, placing his fingers against his chest, "I'm his friend. You think he doesn't have any friends just because he's rich or something?"

"Did someone send you?" she asked.

"I came on behalf of our professor" Dio said. "He wants to know the seriousness of Jonathan's condition for himself. He's rather skeptical of a student's illness this early in the semester."

"Really?" she said, still skeptically and dryly. Dio smirked and summoned his Stand, letting it float up above his head with its arms outstretched and nails drawn out as blades and tattered black wings unfolded wide. The horrible, dagger-toothed mouth of SoaD gnashed and clacked with voracious rage, letting out unhearable sound as it hissed and growled in its ethereal tone. If anyone could see it they would surely make a move and the eyes on the back of its domed head would catch them as SoaD monitored the room and the fearful reactions of all the waiting people like a sentry.

It saw nothing yet while Dio only saw words flashing through the nurses mind. Not thoughts, but words. She reached down and retrieved the necessary files for Dio and gave him two slips. The middle-aged lady looked at him curiously, unsure as to how he was able to manipulate the infeasible system so quickly and without identification, but in the end her mother wasn't getting any better and she made her rushing way for the elevator. After a brief minute of filling out their papers while Rosalisa continued to control the nurse, they clipped on their name tags and turned to her as she stacked the papers in a file.

"He's in room 1211" she said "on the twelfth floor."

"Thank you" Dio said. He and Rosalisa departed, and upon entering a lone elevator they shared a sense of domination and triumph as he grinned nefariously and desummoned his Stand.

"That went well" Rosalisa noted. "I'm surprised we weren't stopped by someone else."

"I am too" Dio said. He brought his hand up to cup his chin in thought. "I suppose Jojo isn't as well guarded as I thought...at least not first-hand."

"First-hand?" Rosalisa asked.

"I didn't notice anyone reacting to my Stand" Dio mentioned "but there were people giving me some rather heated glares. I didn't recognize them at all, but it seemed that they had recognized me. Like I was some nostalgic nightmare of their they wanted to stare down and destroy, people who are seeking me based on descriptions and speculations of my features..."

"So we are still being hunted" Rosalisa said. "I used up an entire page of my book to get us this far. Now I only have five pages left."

"Conserve them" Dio said. "Don't act without my order from now on, alright?"

"Yes, my Lord" she agreed.

"It's just a premonition of mine" Dio began, "but I can sense a sinister force waiting for me in ambush. There are definitely some hostile forces hiding in wait for us to come along, ready to leap out with cloaks and daggers to keep us from leaving. Be on guard. Take all suspicion as hostility and avoid people no matter what. Cut corners sharply, don't let anyone get within an arm's length of you; be cautious but don't show it." Even to his rushed and cryptic orders Rosalisa was able to flawlessly interpret it into a precise and detailed list of commands to follow for her own safety. Dio was getting anxious as the elevator neared the twelfth floor. He could feel the despicable, resonating energy already, as could she...

* * *

On the fourteenth floor, above the twelfth as the thirteenth floor had been sealed off and unused due to the regular levels of superstition in this building, a young female doctor made a duteous march for the supply closet for a procedural bag of equipment. She needed to do a lengthy blood drawing from an infected patient and all that she required was in a clear, plastic bag somewhere in that corporately organized closet that she entered.

"Let's see" she said, pondering with a finger to her thin lower lip, "which one is it again? This one?" She palmed and lifted a bag while, in the corner, a raspy breathing resounded. She hadn't noticed the human presence until just now and jumped as she saw the white-coated figure bent over and scanning the lower shelves in the corner. "Holy shit! I,'m sorry, doctor, I didn't see you there. You scared me." No response. The asthmatic doctor seemed enveloped in his work of finding something.

"Can you help me, please?" she asked. "I just got here today, and I'm still not used to this layout. I'm trying to find a transfusion kit?" The doctor straightened up, standing six-foot something tall, and raised up his smooth head wrapped all in gauze. She was stunned and speechless. He seemed to be getting taller each second she gazed at him. Then he turned around, **his face totally covered in bandages** with only a slim clearing for his flat teeth to show through. They were covered with blood and grease, some disgusting mix of inhumane material gatherings that stained his pure-white gauze with a fleshy rot.

She nearly teared up in fear as he stomped forward, his heel at her head, and grabbed her hair to push her down through the floor where she **sunk like a stone in quicksand.** "You will make a fitting meal" he hissed in a whispering, worn-out voice cracked and aged with years of practiced shouting and roaring. "...the seal shall be broken. It only needs four more gallons." This ominous warning gave the girl a final sink down to floor thirteen, a floor long ago closed off, where her destiny ended. That girl disappeared that day, and the man who sent her to her doom sank down through the floor soon after, breathing raspily and hissing the whole way.

Just as he vanished, an old and significantly more peeved nurse came into the room and grabbed a kit without a moment of searching or confusion. "Where is that little bitch, Rachael?" the nurse wondered. "She said she was going to do this alone once she got the fucking thing. I guess she's just all talk..." The door closed with a harsh click.


	38. Creeper Kingdom 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

As Dio and Rosalisa made their way out of the elevator and onto the tiles of the twelfth floor they kept their eyes forward and fixed on their path. That didn't mean, however, that they weren't aware of their surroundings. Dio especially kept his senses sharp and his Stand at the ready for an instant invocation. Rosalisa kept a step behind him with her tiny notebook always in her folded hands and a pen in her hair. She summoned her Stand's face to peak through her blouse and spoke with Dio telepathically.

_Lord Dio, I am sensing an unwant amount of hostility towards us._

_I know_ Dio replied through the jagged mouth of SoaD. _I'm positive that we're under a hefty amount of surveillance right now. Who knows just how many enemies the Joestars have amassed without ever knowing it._ Dio finally took a brief glance to his side. The nurses were shifting about, doing their work and handing charts off to passing doctors. When one looked up she looked straight at Dio in a swift glare, then went straight back to meeting the eyes of her superiors.

_How can we safely proceed?_ She asked. _Obviously, without an unlimited source of paper for me, I can't use my full power. And you, Lord Dio, may only be able to fight if the quarters weren't so closed._

_I can fight whomever regardless of the conditions. What's important is that we don't draw too much attention to ourselves. We just need to go in and out, swiftly as we can, and make sure that Jojo hasn't suffered too much of a shock from his last battle._

_But why?_ She asked. Dio stopped her right in front of his room and turned to her.

"Because we can" Dio said with a grin. She was speechless. Dio took two quick glances to the sides and reached to open the door. It was swiftly slammed shut by a man with a long, stiff face and drooping eyes with the sides of his head shaved off, leaving a cropped brown top of hair.

"Where do you think you're going?" the man asked as he leaned back to his full, terribly high height. Dio had to look up to try and stare him down. "This patient isn't expecting any visitors..." His voice was as booming as it was annoyed, and the curl in the corner of his upper lip signaled that he was quite annoyed indeed. Dio just smirked and pocketed his hands.

"Oh yes he is" Dio said. "I already signed in downstairs. The nurse told us he was in this very room."

"Did she...?" he asked.

"That's right" Dio said, pointing to the door number. He was about to smugly make his point when he was faced with a shocking revolution. His face became dire and aggravated. The number for Jojo's room was 1211. This room was 1220. The room within sight, 1211 itself, **was a supply closet.** Dio smirked and turned back to the tall doctor. "The woman in there signed us in." The doctor peeked the door open just slightly, taking his eyes from Dio's angered face. Rosalisa turned with a start as a gurney was wheeled out from an elevator and into a nearby room. She saw a barreled chest under the blanket and then the chiseled jaw of a certain, unforgettable man. She quickly activated her Stand and saw, through its eyes, The World.

_Lord Dio!_ She exclaimed. _There he is!_ Dio used SoaD's eyes to see Jojo as he was carted into the room while The World, a Stand he had always sensed but never saw, caught his gazing and glared back with a hundred-fold cruelty.

_How is it active when its user is unconscious?_ Dio demanded. He never broke his composure on his face and continued to stare adamantly ahead as the doctor came back to meet him with his neanderthal forehead furrowing his continuous brow.

"Looks like I was mistaken" the doctor admitted. "Go right in, if you please."

"Thank you very much" Dio said. Rosalisa followed him as he went inside. Once the door was shut the doctor stared at it and then fearfully, with his huge brow beginning to sweat up, looked up to the ceiling. A light flickered over his head and the tiniest spot of darkness began to form on the beige ceiling tile over his head. Eventually that spot grew into a stain that then dripped **fresh blood **into the doctor's hair.

"Damn" he said, biting his lower lip. "These two...are going to cause us all sorts of trouble!" Dio and Rosalisa had ducked away in the corner of the room, behind drawn curtains and around an empty bed. Dio quickly stole a box of tissues from the bed over and cut open the bottom of the box to steal them all away before placing them back just in time for the middle aged woman from downstairs to reach in and take one out.

"I'm so sorry you have to be here, mother" she said to an elderly woman who sat up against a stack of pillows.

"Oh, hush now Agatha" the mother said, patting her daughters hefty shoulder. Dio gave Rosalisa the tissues to write on and Rosalisa went hastily to work making a story of commands. Evanescence floated up with her doll-like grin and extended her paper fingers to roll out the door and latch onto the closest ten people on the floor. Rosalisa took a tissue to each finger tip and soon they were filled with text. Once the fingers were withdrawn and Rosalisa was relaxed Dio scanned over all the telekinetic documents and built himself a menacing grin.

_So that's what they're doing..._ he realized. The sinister plan had been revealed, and with an excited and nasty snarl he raised his head up to Rosalisa who had vanished. Gone like a lingering heat, like a ghost. She disappeared. Now he was worried as the door was opened by the lumbering, tall doctor from the hall. Dio was close to audibly cursing but clenched his fist to hold it in.

* * *

Up on the thirteenth floor, a place where no elevator or flight of stairs could normally reach, a place locked up with padded locks and chains, there stirred a piteous man with a crawling aura of dread and evil around him. The floor writhed up with the rippling hands and arms and legs and faces of some living nightmare that traveled all around him as a puddle of sin, eternally forcing him to stand in the shallow water of his own mind. A man whose face was hidden by wrapped bandages and held together by the sloppy metal surgical staples that were surrounded by light, dimmed marks of blood. This man, in his heavy and aged white coat that faded to a gray from all the years he had worn it, slowly turned his wrapped head to look down the empty hall he stood in.

A girl. Now out cold from the rush of being lifted through the very ceiling and onto his floor. The dreaded, nightmarish thirteenth floor. Why this building hadn't gone past that most obnoxious of superstitions like the rest of the good hospitals in the country was beyond even its owner and its original contractor who was long since dead. Each of the rooms was locked down, the drawers all rusted shut. No chairs or implements for living existed here. Only the bare and dusty walls and things built into them were here. This was a stark and lonely plain of reality for a man to live on with only his Stand to keep him company in the emptiness that he owned.

Now he had a companion, and all was well. He breathed out a raspy breath and summoned up his Stand. The floor finally stopped moving and a humanoid figure of sleek black skin and lighter, dark gray meshed armor stood behind him with its body hunched so far over that its head was near the level of its hip. Its back was framed in a checkerboard pattern with the metallic shining grayscale bones. Its face contained a very human jaw and inhumanly visored set of eyes. They were hidden behind a solid piece of shiny metal that was connected from its ear hole to ear hole, both of which were circled by the mercury-color. It opened its mouth and let out a disgustingly hollow groan which raised the hear of its user.

"There are two more" he said "in hell. We must retrieve them...and judge them for heaven. None can stay in purgatory too long without getting lost..." Rosalisa woke up but dared not stir.

_He dragged me through a solid wall_ she realized. _I must be careful not to catch his attention, but at the same time I must somehow contact Lord Dio...no. First I must assess this Stand's abilities. Then I shall report them to Lord Dio once the threat has been fully noted._ Rosalisa stayed still and waited for the Stand to move close to her, rather than antagonize it with her own wicked powers. The man threw his arm up in her direction and breathed out.

"_**Creeeeeeeeep**_" the Stand hissed as it lurched over. Its knuckles nearly dragged on the ground as it kept itself fully hunched over in its run. It's mouth was open and its rows of teeth were perfectly exposed and flashing with sinister white. It lurched down and started breathing harsh, wet breaths into her hair, poking it with its immaterial fingers and then hopped away. "**........HHHHHHHH......!"** It's loud hissing breath was obviously some sign of revolting panic as it pointed to her body and started breathing rapidly.

"Take up the others from down there" its user said as he approached "and bring them here for judgment. Show them the way through hell that so many have failed..." The Stand started melting away, becoming part of the floor, until nothing of it was left and it was traveling in-between the floors. Rosalisa saw that happen through the sliver of visibility she had between the curtain of her own hair and the floor she rested on. Already she was writing away with her pen carefully in hand into the blank lines of her still unused notebook pages.

"Now let us see" he began. "You lack any true purity. Instead, you seem to have a menacing yet subservient aura about you. You carry such characteristics to classify you as a Devil's Advocate. Perhaps you would be better down in Hell, with your _devil."_ Before the man could summon his Stand back up Rosalisa hopped up to her feet and summoned up her own Stand. Her book was in front of her face, which was covered with her stringy bangs, and her legs were tightly pressed together. She looked down from her nose at the man, who was taller than her by an easy amount, yet held her own air of superiority.

"You're wrong" Rosalisa said. The Gothic marionette with ten long, weaving paper-thin fingers came up from thin air behind her and grinned as its tentacles stretched out to take their victim. The man jumped back and then hit the ground in a backwards roll, all the while he retreated from the ten-fold attack to claim his body. Upon ending his retreat with his back to the wall he reached into his coat pockets and threw two handfuls of scalpels. Rosalisa didn't even bother trying to dodge. Half of them didn't make it and the others merely hit against the wall that was behind her.

"Don't make me try to laugh" she said as her Stand's fingers returned to form actual fingers. "The only one that can threaten my life with throwing knives...is _that man._ That _devil_ to whom I willingly advocate."

"But why?" the man asked.

"That" Rosalisa sternly began "is not your business." Evanescence howled in wretched soprano chord and held it so long the staples in the man's head began to shake. He clutched his head and summoned his Stand once more with a quick flick of his wrist.

* * *

Though its target was just a simple few inches away and the caustic, ethereal drool continued to leak from its mouth, Creep retreated up to the next floor just as Dio made his way inside Jojo's room and locked the door. The World, who sat within Jojo's range on the windowsill, looked over and turned to keep its glaring eyes on Dio. He had been frozen in place.

"Damn" Dio said. "Hehe...this is impressive, even for you, Jojo. I can feel its power from over here! Yeah! It's churning inside me, this lifeless pounding at my heart. That thing of yours, your Stand, **it's a truly evil power!** What an unfitting thing for you to have! HAHAHA!!!" Dio stopped laughing when he started bleeding. His face had a tiny cut just above his cheek bone. Now, with a sneer of a grin, he leaned forward and summoned up his own Stand to hiss threateningly at The World.

"Heh" Dio laughed. He couldn't help but find it all amusing. "All those years of preaching the better word, the holier-than-thou gospel, you can't even live up to it. Jojo, you've been subjugated to such a tremendous power that you can't help but feel that it's evil, and you can't control it. You're pathetic. So afraid of power that you can't accept it when it's given to you!" The World placed one of its feet softly on the floor and looked over. In the glowing light that hit its back its own eyes seemed to glow with a dull, pale green resonating behind a sheeted veil of white.

"Angry, are you?" Dio said, fully summoning his Stand out before him. Its arms unfolded from its chest and reached out to the sides. Its claws retracted and its arm muscles seemed to increase as its wings folded in from behind. A close-quarters fist-brawling pose, apparently. Dio began an approach. The World hopped over Jojo's bed and prepared to fight. Dio got just close enough that he could measure the exact distance of six meters between he and Jojo. If his range were any farther away the attack would have already come, but it seemed that they were both deadlocked for that position of power. Dio flicked a finger up and sent his Stand forth with the fastest punches he could control.

_**WRAAAAAAIIII!!!!**_ SoaD roared as it swung its high-speed fists. The World saw each attack coming and blocked them with its powerful palms. Dio stepped further forward, just a single striding step in his usual gait, but The World acted cautiously. It tripped SoaD and gave it a slid chop to the side. Dio felt his gravity thrown and stumbled hard to the left, almost right into the wall. The World raised and jabbed with a knee now and knocked SoaD back into Dio, who was thrown back against the corner wall of the single-bed room and ended up panting.

_So this is your power, Jojo_ Dio thought. _It's not all looks. That thing is powerful! So this is what got you in so much trouble already!_ The door was quickly thrown open and in, with a scalpel in hand, stalked the tall stiff-faced doctor. He glared at Dio with a curled lip of annoyance and made a threatening gesture at him.

"You bastard!" the doctor growled. "I thought I told you! **NO VISITORS!!!**" The World drew down its guard and stepped back to watch. Dio saw its arrogant gesture and simply summoned his own Stand while the doctor came in for a low stab with the razor-sharp knife.

"How's this, Jojo?" Dio asked. "My control surpasses yours, doesn't it?" SoaD bit the metal from the man's hand and swallowed it. Then it thinned out its left arm and extended its claws before making a roaring grab for the man's broad face. He was stopped with an incredible pressure against his skull from five points at once, like some powerful, sharp-nailed hand was holding him back. SoaD jerked his head down and leaned in, punching him in the throat as rapidly as it pleased, making hissing grunts the entire time while Dio smiled.

"I'm willing to bet you can't control your own Stand yet. Why else are you here, in such pitiful shape?" The World had nothing to say. It just watched the mechanics of Dio's fleshy Stand as it finished its pummeling and let go of the man's face, sending him flying back with a whiplash of force on his neck. He ended up panting slowly and clutching his neck and face in sheer terror.

"You!" the man began with a cough. Dio humored him with a glance. "You're one of them, aren't you!? You're a damn Stand User!"

"What?" Dio grunted. SoaD pointed its slender, pointed fingers up and opened its jagged maw with a hiss. All five spear-tips extended forth in a flash, piercing five holes through the man's throat and summoning up a shower of blood to pour out. He gurgled and groaned as his heavy body hit the floor and a pool of blood formed around his gaping wound. _What!? I didn't command that!_

The World grinned arrogantly. It could see through Dio's cool demeanor right down to the sullen performance he gave. Dio looked back and redirected his Stand, now under perfect control once more, to spit out a dagger formed from the metal of the surgical scalpel. Dio took it in hand and tossed it straight at Jojo's head. Naturally, The World deflected it with a mach-speed punch that sent the dagger straight up. But it wasn't the ceiling that the dagger hit.

"_**SSSSSSSIIIIIIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!!**_" hissed the malevolent Creep. It reached down and took The World by the face. It vanished soon after, returning to Jojo's mind. Creep then stalked as a disgusting oddity, a mixture of sloshing liquid passing through solid, stirring ceiling tiles. Dio saw black as Creep reached for him...

...then he awoke on an abandoned floor in an empty, locked hospital room.

* * *

"You are experienced" the manic man praised of Rosalisa's skill. The frantically fighting girl had run out of paper. She had just two lines left in her notebook. Evanescence waited, floating behind her, for her written command. She looked around for something to write on, any kind of paper product at all, but upon seeing the floor begin to move she winced in defense. Creep came up and grabbed her throat, slamming her against the wall.

"Your power has limits" the man said as he drew close, lightly gripping a metal scalpel in his fingers. "Those limits are there for a reason. You hold a terrible ability, the ability to manipulate and guide people to your own whim. You take their freedom. **God** can't take away our freedom, so what right do **you** have to do so?" He took the scalpel close to her chin and stroked her soft flesh back and forth with the blunt side of the razor, flesh-rending blade. "God has decided the limit to your power, my dear. He has decided that you cannot attain anymore power than you already have, and yet like a greedy human, you reach ever upward at the chance for more."

"Greed" Rosalisa argued "is a staple of humanity." Creep choked her harder for that. She struggled in vain against the wall, unable to dictate anything more to her Stand but a single word. She wrote the word and let fall her notebook.

"Submit to the Lord's judgment!" the man bellowed, reeling his arm back to stab. Evanescence reached its long arm over and forced open a door just as Rosalisa lost consciousness and fell to the floor. The man looked over and, in a flash reaction, blocked a thrown dagger with his own slicing implement. Creep retreated and surrounded his feet as a fleshy, living puddle while Dio, in a tired stagger, joined the fight. He lazily brushed the hair from his face and leaned in the doorway while his Stand stepped out in its full, black form with the trailing, tattered flesh of its wings dragging on the ground like a two-part black cape.

"Screw his judgment" Dio said. "Mine is...much swifter...much more efficient!" SoaD spit a collection of sharp knives and held them in its fanged jaw. Dio reached through its phantasmal head and grabbed the handful, taking them all between his fingers and grinning so brightly that a glare was cast from the blades and into the masked man's eyes.

"Blasphemy" he said, raising his hand and summoning up his Stand at its full height. "I judge you to **Prgatory!**" Creep hissed out its terrible voice. SoaD roared back with a low, hollow roar of its own. The eyes of a crusader met with the eyes of the devil. The enemy of God against his soldier...


	39. Creeper Kingdom 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Dio faced his adversary with the cold and cooling villainy that stopped the hearts of pure, mortal men and his opponent gave him no signs of flinching. Such twisted sanity resonated so clearly through this strange man's mind, the thoughts of judgment and eradication for the pure and the holy that an evil like Dio's did not surprise him, as its presence was one that he had seen in all that he had judged.

Dio attacked. He stepped forward, instantly awake, and threw his daggers. The man's Stand Creep shot itself up and blocked the rain of knives with a swipe of its semi-solid arm. The knives scattered about in the air, and just as Creep brought its arm down another one flew straight for the man's face. He blocked it away with a quick swipe of his scalpel and took a flying throat-high knee from a rushing Dio. Dio grinned madly as he pushed his way forward, hoping to pin his foe to the floor and crush his throat with the weight of his knee, but Creep's arms came winding up with no body attached but the floor, took him by the arms and threw him off. He flipped in the air and landed still facing his enemy, sliding on his feet and making a run as soon as he got back up.

His foe rolled to his front and pushed himself up, bringing Creep up to block. Dio stopped just short enough and summoned SoaD to make a sharp stab with its fingers. Creep leaned away and the bladed nails came within inches of the man's face. He retreated. SoaD tangled with Creep, retracting its claws and pumping its arms up, grabbing both of Creep's hands and delivering a spiking knee drive into the side of Creep's leg. The damage was transferred to the man who staggered at the pressure. Dio took out a knife, stepped around the fighting Stands and threw it, right into his arm.

"Gah!" the man grunted. He pulled the knife out and rounded a corner, summoning Creep down into the floor and back to him as he hid. Dio summoned SoaD to stand beside him as he huffed arrogantly.

"Is that the best you can do?" Dio shouted. "Hit and run? Shouldn't you have a more obvious advantage on this floor!?" But Dio wasn't staying arrogant or mocking long. He quickly began his own tactical retreat and searched for some ground he could call his own. He knew everything was played against his favor already. _As long as I'm here he has a free reign over his Stand. I can't outdo him tactically. He can appear anywhere, anytime with nearly any form. So long as I'm on the 13__th__ floor, I can't battle him evenly. I can't win..._ Dio stopped and brought his hand up to his face. He just looked at it, at the curves and the crevices that marked his destiny as drawn out in the stars in the sky.

"Of course I can beat him" Dio told himself. He clenched a fist and looked to the ceiling. "The question is how..." Just as he planned, Creep crawled through the ceiling above him and made a dive. Dio dashed back and let Creep fall into the floor which turned to liquid around it. Then the Stand slowly rose up, only its bust and its shoulders rising above the swampy mess, still dripping with the rotten horror that it made with every motion, and it hissed.

"The only question" the man said from behind "is for me to ask." Dio spun around and saw a syringe being thrust at him. He reacted with a godly speed and caught the attack with both his arms, forcing a stand-still with his opponent. He was quite physically matched and couldn't move him forward while the man continued to push, and he still had another hand to use. Dio summed SoaD to guard his back, just in time to catch the pouncing Creep and hold it in a body lock. "That question" he continued, reaching into the pocket of his coat, "is for God alone to answer." He pulled out a switchblade knife. Dio was startled. He tried to wrench himself away by twisting the man's arm but to little avail. The threat of freeing him up to inject whatever ungodly serum he had was oppressing him. SoaD, meanwhile, had to use all of its force to keep Creep at bay and to prevent it from simply dragging it and Dio down below the floor.

The man stepped in and stabbed, catching his knife in no vital area but still slicing cleanly through Dio's skin and into his side. The icy cold metal made its way in further and further, right to his tense muscles, and started splitting the fibrous strings against the sharp blade, plunging in deeper and deeper until the colder metal end of the hilt hit against Dio's skin. He felt it all at a crawling speed, that white-hot burning of an ice-cold blade piercing into his flesh and the warm trickle of blood that went down his side, but in reality the attack was so swift that it pushed him back. Dio stumbled backwards in the same slowed daze of crawling time that he lived through the cut with. His reactions and senses had been heightened through his pain, and now he was aware and ready for battle. SoaD threw Creep away, turned to kick the syringe from the man's wrist and then leaped back to catch Dio before he hit the ground and slowly push him up.

Dio was laughing, and past that laughing he was intermittently coughing in pain. But laughing or coughing he was smiling, and it was obvious just how he smiled by the white glare of teeth that shined out against the black shadow across his face. He finally got back up to the arches of his feet and stood with a hand cradling an elbow and five tense fingers across his face, framing his eyes to glare forth with their wicked red tinting the oceanic blue.

"How utterly childish of you" Dio said. "Who in the world brings a knife **to a Stand fight?**" Dio was deadly serious now. SoaD's wings were spread and its claws were bared and its voice was emitting an echoing, hollow roar and nothing could stop him now. This was Dio at his fullest potential, pushing the human envelope in an extreme circumstance. The threshold had been breached. Dio's madness worked itself up. A true evil awakened...

* * *

"A knife in God's hand" the man said "can slay an army of the faithless." He switched the blade back into the hilt and stood fast against Dio with his Stand coiling around his legs as a semi-liquid entity. _What an evil aura he holds, and with such grace and purpose. It's as if he has taken the grips of Satan to his shoulders as a mantle of pride. He wears this despicable evil with such care and relaxation...could a man like this truly exist in God's world? A man so much darker than all others!?_

"I am tired of questions" the man said suddenly. He snapped his fingers and sent his Stand into the floor. Dio grinned. The advantage was momentarily his. He moved with an elegance indescribable and reached into a pocket with his hand to throw a knife. The man blocked it and hopped to the side in an attempt to rush in. SoaD spat a knife at his feet, forcing him to misstep backwards while the hand in fornt of Dio's face brushed back threw his hair and brought forth another knife that he threw very casually. The man dodged it and let it sink into the wall behind him. "You are a wicked man. I shall see that divine punishment is brought to you!"

"Oh, fuck off..." Dio lowed. SoaD dashed forward and began stabbing and growling. Dio walked forward in a perfectly casual pace, chasing the man down with his Stand's attacks, unaware of the trap he wandered into until he already saw that he was caught. SoaD fell back to its master as Creep grabbed his ankles from below. "**Kill it**" Dio commanded. SoaD got on a knee and began stabbing rapidly into the floor with its long claws penetrating through to the ceiling of the floor below, stabbing miniscule holes all through the white ceiling tile while all the humans walked around and ignored it. Dio was being pulled further and further downward, into the space between the floors, struggling in vain with his Stand.

"In Purgatory" the man said "you will face yourself, your greatest foe, and die from the madness before you ever realize how to escape. It is there that a soul as fiercely evil as yours must be sent, **with all the others.**" Dio glared at him through the shadow around his face. In his final act before disappearing he threw a dagger, one serrated and formed with rage, that sunk into the man's forearm and stunned him with pain.

"Don't throw that away" Dio warned as he sank through the floor. "I'll most certainly come back for it..." And with those final threatening words Dio vanished and the floor quelled itself. Now trapped inside the floor itself, bombarded by the hideous stench of countless rotted bodies, Dio curled himself up to fit his surroundings better and summoned the arm of his Stand to pull him forward. One arm he held to his nose and the other he used to cover his mouth in an attempt to filter the absolute rot from the air, and despite the pitch darkness around him he could still see the terrible lacerations on the face of a freshly-dead young woman that had done her in.

_I just need to get there..._ Dio planned. _Get there, SoaD, get me there so that I can kill that bastard!!!_

While Dio traveled by the gracious hand of his own imagined power, the man and his Stand, the seeker of justice and the Creep, approached the unconscious Rosalisa to take from her her final thoughts.

"You wasted the rest of your blasphemous power" he noted, looking at the last page of her diary, "on an oddly good term. You wrote the name of your creator in your final moments, an act of repentance." The man saw her final worded command, which had freed Dio from the locked room, and mistook the heavenly name for that of the heavenly being. He was woefully wrong, but it couldn't be helped. He had creep take Rosalisa by the shoulders and prop her up against the wall. "You have accepted a greater force, submitted yourself to a higher being, and allowed a light to shine into your heart the likes of which most humans cannot see. You have earned a safe passage to heaven, but I cannot provide it. I am only a judge for the wicked, and an executioner for the unholy and demonic. Therefore, I shall sentence you to your Purgatory, until another can come and reclaim your body to be placed in the rightful hands of God..."

So Creep took Rosalisa's body and went down below, into the floor, into the crawl space between floors where the wires fed into all the walls and where the batteries powered the lights of the ceiling below, to place her in limbo until a greater force than he came to take her away. Creep was gentle with her body and placed it very softly amidst the bony remains of another long-forgotten corpse. Creep stopped for a moment and looked down at Rosalisa, a fallen flower, to breathe a sigh of sadness in her favor.

…_**.............hhhhhhhh.....**_ The darkness hissed at Creep. It hissed with the beckoning advent of dread and doom. Creep turned to it and hissed back.

_**Siiiiiileeeeence......**_ Creep hissed. The darkness didn't respond. Not audibly, but the darkness certainly began to move. Edging its way forward on its sharp claws, SoaD emerged as a tangible darkness and rushed in full force with its maw wide open and roaring.

_**WRAAAAAAAIIIIIII!!!!!!**_ Creep braced itself for the attack as Dio and his Stand came sliding forward at full force!

The man, meanwhile, inspected the knife on a table while he carefully bandaged his white, leathery skin that was stained with the streaming blood from his wound. He watched the knife closely, believing it to somehow retain a sentient level of Dio's evil, as it was spawned from him, and judged it's every nasty curve constantly with his incredibly diligent, mad eyes.

"Just how could he take it" he wondered "unless he would somehow..." A terrible feeling overcame him suddenly. It was as if his throat was being crushed in the grip of some sinister hands. He felt for his windpipe and pushed his fingers over an indentation in the shape of a hand that was on his neck. He knew what it meant. A demon from hell was hurting him, clutching him from a world beyond, in an attempt to end his righteous duties as a judge for all the living and dead to pass through his holy realm.

_Damn him!_ The man cursed. _Creeper, return to me! Hurry!_ And so his fatal flaw was played...

* * *

As the ground near the edge of the room where Rosalisa had been taken down to the lower floors began to warp the man came running to meet with his Stand and usher off any demons that may be on it. Creeper's ability was in effect, surely, as the ground took on more viscous than solid properties, but the Stand itself wasn't presenting itself to its user. He metally summoned it again, and this time its arm came up and clawed for solid ground as it pulled the rest of its body upward. SoaD's black hand was wrapped around its neck and its fleshy wings formed as reigns that tied around its shoulders to pull it up. Attached to those wings and the source of that ethereal had was Dio, who was hoisted up with Rosalisa in his arm, recovered from Purgatory by the very Stand that sent him there.

Dio released the wings of SoaD from Creeper and let it crawl back into its master's mind. He let go of his girl and sent her to a wall with SoaD forming and carrying her so she was properly harmlessly leaned against the wall. She drifted down to the floor and curled herself up in a sub-conscious protective act, leaving Dio with his bleeding side and the man with his patched-up bleeding arm to face each other down once more.

"How did you do that...?" the man asked.

"Obviously" Dio said "you don't share a tight enough bond with your Stand. I just latched myself to it and knew you would recall it." The man was breathing hard and angrily now.

"How did you do it!?" he demanded in a rage. "No force but God can bring you back from Purgatory! Not even I have the capability of bringing back every soul that I send there! They are always ushered off to Hell before I get the chance to recover them! **How are you alive!? Answer me!!!**"

"I explained that already" Dio said, placing a hand on his hip. "You aren't smart...are you?" The man became furious and lost his control. He charged forward with a wound-up punch in his bandaged hand. Dio just smirked as he saw the attack come. Then the man punched, straight down, not close enough for a regular hit to connect, and planted his open palm on the floor. Dio retreated just as a fore-flip ax kick came his way and dodged it. The man was up again and calmly rushing this time. It was a straight-up fist-fight now. Dio blocked the best he could with his thick and solid forearms while the bandaged man made steep swinging hooks and sharp kicks to his legs to weaken him.

_Shit. I didn't think he'd go for an all-out fight like this..._Dio continued to relent and started throwing his own punches, but even his dulled, human eyes could see that they weren't fast enough to do any real damage if they connected. They were sluggish and inaccurate, an obvious side effect from the loss of blood and muscle control that his stab wound brought about. Dio decided to finish his fight and broke away. SoaD appeared with a lunge and a roar, grappling with the man and holding him in place, eventually applying all the pressure from Dio's manifested rage that he was down on his knees and struggling to stay off of his hands.

"Now, now" Dio said, "that won't do. Unless I get a proper bow from you, like a good worshiper, I won't let you up!"

"GAAAH!!!" the man shouted. Creep shot up from the floor, as the floor, and threw SoaD away. Dio was pushed back but managed to stay on one foot and steady himself again. He glared at his enemy, who was regaining his strength with each passing moment, and called his Stand back to defend him. Creep came to its full height stood imposing itself upon Dio and his Stand, its skeletal teeth shining murder at them, and suddenly it attack, springing forward and delivering a stern straight-fingered jab into SoaD's side, right where Dio was stabbed and bleeding. Dio was forced against the wall in a painful stagger and held his side as the blood redoubled itself. He pulled his hands away from the hot, leaking liquid and then clamped them back down. Even though he was in a hospital, he couldn't bring himself to search for the proper instruments to treat his vicious wound. No opportunities to search a room were present, as his manic judge was up and ready to kill.

"I believe" he began "that this is yours." He held up the serrate-edged knife and threw it to Dio's feet, directly in the ground. A thin line of blood had formed between the two points. Dio looked down, just now noticing the strangely thin line of blood, sure it was neither his nor his enemy's, then saw Creep holding up the freshly chopped finger of a young woman. It cackled in a hissing manner and dropped the finger to the floor where it sank down to the purgatory floor.

_It drew it that fast?_ Dio realized. _Is this guy just fucking with me after all? Isn't he taking this seriously at all!?_ Then Dio realized, with a Stand like that, he didn't have to, and finally a very foreign, human sense of defeat overwhelmed him. He felt like falling over, but propped against the wall all he would be able to do was slid in an embarrassing defeatist way. His pride was too great to allow that, so he just staggered forth and got mad, so mad that SoaD summoned itself against his own mental orders.

"That line" the man said "represents a sending point between worlds. Should you step both feet upon that line, at any time, the gate shall open and **you shall die.**" Dio scoffed.

"What are you?" he asked. "Some twisted prophet?"

"No" the man said. He took a hand to the bandages of his face and ripped them off in a streaming storm of dirty white. His face was so hideously scarred that Dio had trouble connecting it to a human body. He lacked a nose entirely, his lips were torn apart with thick scars, his eyes were browless and lacked any lids, and all over his skin there were deep holes and crevices where some past burn or blunt force or laceration had left a permanent mark. And his head was smooth with those aged burns as well, as if his entire scalp had been once set ablaze, which would better explain his complete lack of ears. He looked like a cheaply fashioned, devilish monster mask, but he breathed and growled and glared a very human, very merciless glare.

"**I am Justice"** His words, so blunt and forceful, struck Dio right at his wound, adding an insult to injury that made him laugh through the pain.

_Justice?_ Dio thought, unable to talk. _You've got to be fucking kidding me..._


	40. Creeper Kingdom 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Dio was at a stand off with the demon-faced man who called himself Judgment. A line of blood was drawn on the floor, and should both Dio's feet hit that line it would send him into the hell where he belonged. A swift and merciless killing spot, an X to mark his demise. Though he bled, Dio grinned and even worked up a loud and arrogant laughter.

"Hahahahahahaha!!!! Are you fucking kidding me?" Dio said. He took his bloody hand up to point the man down and turned away, glancing with a grin from the side of his eyes with his bloodless hand pushing up his bangs. "What kind of maniac are you, to order around fate like that? You're no judge! You're just a lunatic!" Dio stomped forward, inhaling to brace his pain, and dashed at the man with SoaD in front. The Stands grappled one another as Dio sped past to the long counter of the floor nurse station and took a powerful grip to a sealed box. With inhuman strength he ripped off the steadfast latch still locked down by the iron padlock and took a roll of gauze. He took of his shirt and held it with his teeth while he prepared the gauze and a thread and needle.

"No!" the Judge called. "Creeper, kill him!"

_**HHHHHHHH!!!!!**_ It hissed, monstrously.

"System of a Down!" Dio shouted. He shot forward a tense-fingered palm and gripped it. His Stand returned to him and then came out, just the head, around his fist with its razor fangs lashing out. "My Stand is a free one. That is it's true power, the power of flight from both the ground and from reason! You know the old adage, to every rule there is an exception that prove it? A Stand is one per person, that much is possibly true, but it can be outdone easily. A Stand is a reflection of a user's own mental presence and latent psychic powers? AN obvious statement. A Stand remains in a single, static form? **Lie.**" Dio punched his hand and with a long and wringing neck the head of SoaD snaked forward to chomp at the gooey substance skin of Creeper. It chewed up the tile like a mouth full of dried leaves and spit it out, snaking its way to continue its attack.

The Judge retreated both himself and his Stand while SoaD's head continued to attack. Dio's arm remained stretched out for his target while his hands worked diligently and delicately to suture his would. He winced angrily at the pain he brought upon himself but refused to use an anesthetic that was in the cabinet. He wasn't so weak that he needed it to perform such a simple task, but the sad fact was that he had lost too much blood to do it well.

_Damn. This man got too clean of a blow on me_ Dio realized. _I'm done for unless I can get some actual medical treatment. I can only say that it's ironic where my wound came from, and that even though I am in a hospital, I can't get care at the moment..._ The Judge dodged fervently while Creeper went on the attack for Dio, appearing out of the ceiling with hands reaching for his golden head. Dio ripped a strand of gauze with his mouth and glared his eyes upward. He moved his arm to aim straight up and the shark-toothed face of his Stand came out suddenly, snaring the hand and biting the wrist of Creeper. Punctures formed along the Judge's wrist and blood sprayed.

"Damnation!" the Judge exclaimed. He withdrew his Stand from the ceiling and the entire mass of deformed, strange wall matter collapsed. Dio was under it when it happened and was subject to the soft blunt force of being hit with falling ceiling tiles. They hit his back and broke against it, clattering to the floor.

_What did he do just now?_ Dio wondered with a studious glare over. Creeper was moving swiftly through the floor again, making an invisible pounce through the cabinet corner. Dio grinned a wide-eyed, ear-to-ear grin of madness and lowered his arm.

_**WRAAAAAAIIIII!!!!!**_ With an echoing roar SoaD lurched forward in its compact, muscular form to grab Creeper and choke it with both incredibly powerful hands. Dio just leaned away and grinned, staring down at the pathetic struggle the Stand put up against his inner darkness, and saw the Judge struggling on his knees for the graceful breath of God to return to his throat. SoaD picked Creeper out of the physical realm it inhabited and threw it into the Judge where it was returned to his body. The force of the return sent the Judge up from the floor with a blast of air and into a wall that he bound off of and back onto his feet with a stagger.

"Ah, now I seem to understand" Dio said. His side was neatly tied up and bound all around his waist with tight, sterile white gauze. He took his shirt from his mouth and balled it up around his fist, then walked through the station with SoaD keeping close in tow, its eyes watching on the back of its head for movement to counter. "Your Stand can merely posses the physical properties of the floor you're on. Anything build into the building and connected directly with the floor is fair game, eh? But it's only a possession. As long as the Stand's energy is within the floor or the walls or the ceiling it can move as freely as it wishes. If you recall it before it can properly leave its environment, however, its shape is left. This is a pitiful mistake of design. Your Stand can easily be seen by human eyes. Non-Stand users can identify it without any kind of mental perceptive abilities."

Dio stopped in front of a glass case on the wall and ran his cold, uncovered hand over it. "What a lame power you have. It isn't a freedom like mine at all!" Dio wound up a punch and threw it through the glass. Then with his other hand he pulled down a lever. A fire alarm was triggered and sprinklers long left static and unused in the ceiling came down to douse the floor with water. Dio held his arms out and grinned at the rain and darkness while the Judge snarled as it impacted against his aged, warped skin.

_What is he planning?_ The Judge thought. _Does he intend to drown me? Or perhaps to erase the mark on the floor?_ The Judge looked over at that thin line of blood, then back at Dio, whose mighty religious pose was stricken aback by the demonic span of wings that extended behind him. Creeper moved under its user's feet as a pool of swirling liquid floor with its skull face lifted up and cocked at its prey. _It will not work. God's laws are absolute. By my Dogmatic decree, that line is the gate to Hell, and by the power in my righteous soul he will pass through it!

* * *

The Judge held fast with his Stand swirling around his feet. Dio's arms rose up as columns beside his head with his hands hovering over his golden crown, limp and soaked from the falling water. The sudden surge of wetness stirred Rosalisa, but she did not open her eyes or move at all, unsure of her current condition._

_I can't move_ she suddenly realized. _Lord Dio, please hear me somehow, but I may be in danger. If you can find a way to come for me, please save me...if not, then tell me how to aid you in my final moments._

"You're going to die, blasphemous fool" the Judge shouted. He summoned Creep up with heavy chunks of the floor in its hands. The Judge thrust both his hands at the presumptuous man and Creep drew its own arms back to throw the heavy tile projectiles. Dio extended the long, demonic wings of his Stand and gave them a hard flap. The wind that the black span kicked up carried the air as a razor splash aimed at the Judge and his attack was thwarted by the stinging rain against his leathery skin. Dio rushed in across the dried stretch of floor and jabbed his straight fingers under and into the man's ribcage, lifting him clear off his feet as he leaned his whole body into the attack, reeling back onto his toes with his arm lifting the man up by the tensile strength of his flat, stabbing hand. Dio's lips curled into a smile and he set loose the hellion hound of war upon the Judge, casting SoaD's fist to his face as rapidly as the demon Stand could punch, roaring its hollow roar all the time.

"Victory is mine, you wrinkled old monster!" Dio stopped the attack, lowered himself from his toes with a stomp and made a straight thrust-punch to send the man across the hall. The Judge was quick to retaliate, sending his Stand's true form up from the floor to strike at Dio. He retreated and left his own Stand to handle it. They exchanged blows in rapid succession, neither hitting any vital spots. When one swung to deliver a powerful blow to a painful area, the other would intercept the fist with its own or slide the attack away while going in for its own attack only to be blocked in the same manner. This cycle repeated at an incredible pace until both Stands broke away at the same time, heeding their user's commands.

_He's got admirable concentration_ Dio thought. He snarled suddenly and snapped down at his side. The water wasn't helping his gauze to absorb the blood and his sutures were getting hit with the soaking water at last. The sting of foreign water entering his cut reached him and distracted him for but a split moment. Creeper thrust its arm half into the floor and it came out, murky and liquified, right at Dio's leg. He looked down suddenly and attempted to shout a curse before the thing grabbed him and began to pull. Only his leg was dragged down, and he was forced onto his knee.

"Dammit!" Dio shouted. "SoaD, carve him up!" His Stand unsheathed its long nails and began stabbing rapidly with a shaky roar into the floor. Creeper withdrew its hand and hopped away, leaving Dio sealed by the ever more hole-ridden floor that his Stand attacked.

"You cannot escape me now" the Judge said. He rubbed his hand all over his face, moving all of his loose and sopping wet skin with each minor movement. He brushed his hand down and his wrinkles all coagulated at his chin and neck. Then he pulled up and his face was taught to the bone with his teeth all exposed and skeletal, the creases moving now in a loose bunch to the back of his skull. "I didn't even feel that heathen barrage of yours. My face is unphasable!"

"Fucking freak" Dio growled. SoaD had finally cut him loose, so he sprang up and kicked the loose, wet debris at his enemy before making another rush. "Don't think you can just trap me however you want! You may control this floor with your Stand but you can't tether me down!" Dio stopped running. He felt an odd, displaced weight at his ankle that he had just unbound. He looked down, startled, and saw that he had been chained fast to the pipes in the floor. Before he could stop properly the chain jerked him back and he fell forward, right onto his chest, saving his face with only his quick arm. SoaD had returned to him, his battle spirit lost in the instant spark of defeat from swallowing his words so suddenly.

"Oh, can't I?" the Judge asked mockingly. "You look pretty tethered, devil. Snared by the hell form which you escaped!" Dio pushed himself up with a furious scowl. The Judge threw his arm forward slowly and his Stand rose up from the sloshing waters as a disgusting, crawling mess of arms and legs with a roaring skull-faced head coming for Dio. Dio growled and pushed himself from his stomach up into the air with his thick, powerful arms. He was back on his toes and braced for an impact. Creeper shot up and grabbed him right on his wound, pressing hard and undoing his careful sutures in an instant.

"**GAAAHHHH!!!!"** Dio roared in pain. "Son of a BITCH!" SoaD emerged and hacked away Creeper's arm. The Stand retreated and left the bulging, unstable mess of floorboards and insulation in its place, but the Judge wasn't without consequence himself. His wrist had been slashed and blood began streaming out of it. He took a wrap of gauze from his white coat pocket and wrapped it quickly around his wrist, then injected a mysterious clear liquid through a prepared syringe into his arm. His entire forearm went numb and the blood circulating through it had nearly disappeared. It was pale white in contrast to the sickly gray of the rest of his skin.

"I'm not the kind of man to let all his blood escape" the Judge said. "You'll have to do better than-" He was cut off, quite literally, by a knife that sliced through the flapping skin of his cheek. Now his entire jaw on the right side was exposed as the leathery flap of flesh fell past his gums while the top half covered the top row of his teeth and bled rare drops of blood onto the molars of his bottom row. Dio's arm was straight out until he returned it with an angry pump to his side. His eyes were glowing red with rage. The fire drill was finally over and the sprinklers stopped. The floor was covered in a slick coating of fresh water which drained itself down into the Purgatory space of the ceiling below through the uneven holes that Creeper had made.

"Gkkhhh...." the Judge growled, unable to form an articulate word at the moment due to his sliced cheek-skin. "You....." he began, still trying. "You devil....you bastard! You've disgraced my face!"

"You're face" Dio began "was a godless disgrace long before you ever met me. Now, I'm going to show you true mercy, **and obliterate that satanic visage forever!"** His threat struck painful anger into the Judge who instantly summoned Creeper to come up from the floor and rush Dio in its full standing form. Dio sent SoaD to intercept it with a punch, a kick, a grab of the shoulder and then send it and its user away with a powerful, torqued punch to the gut. The Judge slammed into the wall behind while his Stand flew back and into the wall just beside him. Dio ducked down and rushed in, ready to finish the fight with a bladed tube in his grip The Judge let him advance and then repelled him with Creeper's punch from the wall. Dio caught it in his forearms to block and then started stepping back as the Judge rushed in with scalpels.

"I'll create for you a face" the Judge began "to fit the sinful darkness of your heart!" Dio scoffed.

_I already have that face_ he thought. _A pretty face hides all the devil's ill will, does it not?_ The Judge pounced forward and made a dive with his short-bladed weapons. There was a fiery drive in his eyes. Dio's evil grin exuded pure ecstatic, carnal rage.

* * *

On the twelfth floor below the emergency lights were done flashing and alarms had stopped blaring. The floor was at a cautious peace once more and patients were being wheeled back into their rooms. The giant doctor with the fatal head wound had been carted down to an emergency floor earlier. Apparently, he was still barely alive, and the patient who occupied the room he was found in was doing well despite the sudden disruption in his otherwise peaceful sleeping.

He was still asleep. He hadn't woken up at all. The stranger part still was how well his blood was circulating despite his injuries. His bones were set and his bruises were gone, and the nurses asked one another why he was in a bed. It was as if his injuries upon entering the hospital had never happened.

The World, Jojo's stand, hovered over his body, arms and legs impatiently crossed, and looked glaringly up at the ceiling. The water from above was seeping in and its amazing, machine-strength senses had picked up the noise of the fight above. It hovered up to the highest point of its minimal range and placed the tip of its middle finger to the ceiling, easily piercing trough the tile and cracking the surrounding area with its strength. Water started to drip out. A drop sailed straight through The World's ethereal face and fell onto Jojo's face. It set there, joined by others to form a pool that cooled Jojo's head and eventually woke him with a start.

He shot up in his bed, so utterly startled that he completely missed seeing his own Stand hovering over him. He wiped the water from his face and looked around. He had no recollection of where he was, but was quickly able to understand that he was in a hospital. Now he had to figure out why, and then he looked up and knew. His eyes shot open in shock. He climbed from his bed and tried to run by his Stand fell down before him and blocked his route, stunning him into submission. The World stood up slowly and raised a flat palm to Jojo's face. He tensed himself up and began concentrating all the force of his resonating Ripple energy into his right fist for an attack. The World curled all but its index finger and pointed up. Jojo followed and heard a crash on the floor above, his senses heightened due to his sudden propulsion back into consciousness.

_I can feel some familiar force above me_ he thought. _It's heavy, dark...It's Dio. I'd know that presence anywhere! He's using his Stand!_ The World extended its hand to Jojo. He backed a step away and looked at the strong, pale hand with a striking curiosity. He looked between The World's face and its hand, ever more curious, and with his hand still strong and brightly flesh-colored with the Ripple he grabbed it and they shook. _Does this mean...you're giving me control?_ The World's eyes shined red. With the ethereal power of a Stand it took Jojo in a vice grip by his forearm and his groin, then reeled up and threw Jojo straight through the roof and to the wet floor of the floor above. Jojo refused to move for a moment until the constantly moving water that rippled in brilliant, beautiful patterns away from him forced him to his feet.

"How?" he wondered, looking at his hands. The World revealed its tightly clenched fist echoing in motion beside Jojo's open, shivering palm. Jojo tried to tie some communication by closing his eyes but he only saw the darkness of his eyelids. He was still at a twilight area, linked with his Stand by willing its existence but unable to control it, unable to understand it. "I guess I should be thankful you aren't trying to beat me up" Jojo said. "Dio is the priority here. This is a hospital. God only knows what kind of things he could be doing here..." So Jojo, unaware of the situation, unaware of what pressing deals surrounded the fight he was about to intrude, burst through the open, broken door and stomped his feet to the ground, glaring down the hall at the daring fight between Dio and the Judge.

Dio had the Judge's arms bound by his iron grip. He hopped back and planted a powerful kick into the gut of the Judge, still holding tight. The Judge was able to break one arm away and made a sweeping slash with the knife. Dio raised his other leg and kicked his face, sending him back once more, across the short hall and into a locked door where he held his torn face in pain and growled loudly at his handsome enemy.

"DIO!" Jojo blared. Dio and the Judge both looked over to see Jojo, standing high and mighty, pointing the golden-haired boy down with a furious scowl on his face. "Whatever you're doing, I can only assume it's riddled with ill-intent! Stop and explain yourself!"

"I can't believe it" Dio mumbled to himself. "He's alive, and healthy! Only a short while ago he was sleeping and battered. What kind of ridiculous healing properties does he have!?"

"NO! YOU FOOL!!!!" the Judge roared. "Don't stand there! For the love of God, MOVE!" Jojo lowered his stance a bit and cocked his brows. Creeper reacted automatically, as he was instructed to, and moved beneath him. Jojo's toes were both on that thin red line, the destined gate between the living and eternally punished worlds. On order, Creeper took two long daggers from beneath the floor, placed there in the deep throes of battle against Dio to set up the trap, and took them in both hands. It was like an iron trap being sprung by the heavy footfall of an unwary traveler. The knives came up in arcs from the floor, one driving for Jojo's front and the other for his back, right at the base of his spine.

Dio's eyes widened in surprise. The Judge was reaching out futily to stop his Stand. Rosalisa finally opened her eyes to the world and was blinded temporarily by the flash of the daggers that sprang up from beneath the floor. Too late Jojo realized that he had walked into a trap, and for just a moment the world stopped moving. The flow of time froze.......


	41. Creeper Kingdom 4

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo blinked curiously. The metal clash of knife-on-knife was still ringing in the moist air, resonating with a painfully sharp note that sang of what should have been that was denied. Creeper rose up from the ground, the knives held at its chest. Everyone was in unanimous shock and awe, particularly Jojo who had a frozen gasp of horror on his face despite the fact that he was **uninjured. **He quickly patted down his stomach and his back and felt nothing, no stab wounds or even any discomforting cringes. He wasn't even standing on the red line on the floor anymore. It washed away with the water to a hole somewhere else. He stood near Rosalisa who was still leaned against the wall where Dio left her, and he was confused.

"How" Jojo wondered aloud "did that happen?" He looked at his hands, waiting for The World to reveal itself once more, but it didn't. _Was it you?_

_How!?_ Dio demanded. His face was tense, his eyes wide and his mouth parted from the shock of seeing something that had slipped through his own sight, seeing an impossible outcome and the skip in motion that had gone unseen. _How did he do that!? Has he suddenly gained control of his Stand!? This soon!? It's impossible, even for Johnathan Joestar it's just fucking impossible!!!_

"That power of his" the Judge said, in awe over his dodge of his trap. "For just a moment before he moved....I swear I could see something divine coming from him...he bears the mark of Christi, he is anointed...!" The Judge fell to his knees and began praying in Jojo's direction. "He bears the unbearable mark! I can feel it! I could see it! YES!!!" Dio saw an unmistakable opportunity. With a knife in hand he spun it around and made a leap forward, arm drawn up, knife ready to split through the bone of his skull and drive into his brain. Creeper sank the Judge down through the ground, leaving Dio's knife half-buried in the melting, moving goo that Creeper had left behind, right down to the hilt. Dio stood back up, spat in disdain and crossed his arms before looking back at Jojo.

"How did you do that, Jojo?" Dio asked, prying Jojo from his lost state of mind.

"I" Jojo began, not sure how to continue. He shook the question off and pointed at Dio instead. "Nevermind me! What the fuck is going on here!?" Dio scoffed.

"I suppose you have a right to know" Dio said. "There's not a lot I can do to keep you from discovering the truth, anyway. You're the kind of guy who always gets what he wants..." Jojo looked at Dio curiously, trying to see an ulterior motive. He could see through the veil of his lowered head to the wicked smile and shining malice in his closed eyes, but beyond that he could see nothing more. Dio presented himself in as honest a way that Jojo had ever seen, yet he kept his distance and his Stand at the ready, its long-clawed hands reaching out from Dio's thick, round shoulders, open as if cupping the bowls of gold-plated grails that it offered up to the heavens. Jojo just stood, steadfast and statuesque, waiting for him to start.

Down below on the Purgatory level the Judge and his Stand crawled through the space between floors, approaching a certain point marked off with a holy symbol obscured by a mildewy rot. The Judge moved up through the floor there and came to an inner sanctuary within the floor, a room perfectly sealed off and unused, one filled with **bodies that nested countless vermin, insects and rats alike, hung from hooks suspended by chains.** The ghastly sight of half-skeletal muscular-structure puppets was accompanied by a scent so appalling that even the rats shied away from most of the bodies that emitted the heinous stink. The Judge was not bothered by it at all. He had been in this room more than once, contributing to the horrible grave with the bodies of those eternally lost in the void of Purgatory below.

"I've been waiting for this" he said, marching around, frantically searching for the instrument he stored in his den of evil. "The coming of a man exuding light, a pure force of flesh and bone with the power to defy his own, gruesome fate! Yes....This is it, I know it! What that man predicted for me in the cards!!!" The Judge finally found the implement he had been looking for, a silver-edged sword made in a perfect holy cross. Even covered in the dusty gore from the room's atmosphere of rot and decay the sword had a glimmering shine to it. With his weapon now in hand he had his Stand open a way for him in the wall and walked into a closet. Then through the window of that closet he saw Jojo talking to Dio, a saintly man trading words with a demon.

"That's the most of it" Dio said. Jojo was in shock. His wrongful accusation aside he felt bad for threatening Dio only moments earlier. His guard was completely down, just as Dio wanted it to be, and he basked in his triumph over the otherwise glimmering example of gentlemanly conduct that Jojo stood for. Rosalisa finally managed to wake her body up along with her mind and groaned. Jojo's first instinct was to help her up, but knowing how she operated with Dio he subdued it and stepped back, minding the red line of blood on the floor that still hadn't gone away despite all the water.

"What the hell!?" a voice called. Jojo's absence was noticed not too soon after he left and a nurse discovered the huge hole in the wall he was thrown through. "What happened!? Where's the patient, how'd this hole get here!?"

"Not very discrete, were you?" Dio asked mockingly. Jojo growled and turned to him, barely catching sight of the Judge sneaking up with his taught-flesh face bulging his eyes out just above the surface of the rippling ground. He looked like a demonic toad with human skin and his long, thick arms brought up from below the shining silver blade of holy build, aimed directly at Dio's body. Jojo's eyes widened with fear, fear Dio looked past as he laughed at Jojo's pity, but fear that Rosalisa picked up on in an instant. With a hasty decision she took out a pin from her hair and scrawled a long white scratch into her arm reading 'Dodge'. Her Stand took over, shot its fingers for Dio and seized immediate control to bring him all the way over to stand between she and Jojo, the red line separating nemesis from nemesis while the Judge was brought up with the sword in one hand and a shield made of **bones and hardened muscles** with a skull in the center strapped to his other arm.

"Let us ascend together" he growled, summoning up his Stand with his arms out in a bow. Creeper rose up to its full height and hissed, prepared to fight with its long lanky arms and strong, bone-armored legs. The claws of SoaD and the tight fists of The World were prepared...

* * *

The heads began their scratching down below. The hole up to the thirteenth floor of the hospital was dripping wet with water, possibly from the origin of the fire alarm earlier. The nurses and many of the doctors with free time had gathered around and awed at the spontaneous hole in the ceiling. The maintenance men came at last with a ladder and set it up, two men holding it on the slick floor, while one climbed up to the thirteenth floor. After pulling his limber body up and getting a solid stance on the wet ground he looked around. His narrow, squinting eyes and roughly cut facial features strained to make out the better details of this decrepit crypt of health.

"What the hell...?" he said, rubbing his head. He heard the sounds of struggle outside the broken door and walked carefully to look out the hall. Four people were on this floor, one of them holding a large silver sword, two of them facing him off and one, a girl, sheltered inside the nurses station with her arms and throat wrapped up with gauze tape. The monster-faced man with the sword made acrobatic leaps and crawling dashes, using one hand to attack and his other hand as an extra leg to push and pull himself along. He stayed low to the floor as he manically made his way about, attacking the boy in the T-shirt and with blond hair while the other one stood away and tried to distract the wild man by throwing things and straining against the air like a mime being pushed by an invisible bull.

The janitor only saw half of the true battle. While Dio dodged the wild swings of the silver slaying sword, SoaD attacked with its own bladed claws, making stabs and swipes that traced the air with thin ribbons of streaking blue air to counter the material sword with. Jojo held back Creeper which pressed its hands against the still defiant hands of The World that glared up and countered each move the demonic floor-crawler made in Jojo's favor while the man himself continued breathing his Ripple, harnessing his energy for a long-thought plan. Rosalisa was searching for a working pen and finally found one. She began writing on the spare papers she found in the cabinet in the station and made her first commands at the Judge.

After a lengthy scrawl which she silently spoke with rapid lip movement, the scroll-like fingers of Evanescence extended out and snared the Judge around his arms legs and torso. He was danced against his will across the room, though his Stand, through The World and held right in front of a snarling Jojo as he punched him with a Sun-charged fist to the face. His Stand dissolved as he was thrown across the room with an explosive burst of power. Dio jumped to the side and hit his back against the wall, jarring his knife wound and forcing him to reel over himself in pain. The Janitor jumped away and splashed to the shallow water of the ground in a desperate dodge. He saw the man with the messed-up leathery skin unconscious against a dent in the metal frame of the room's door. The sword he held slid across the wet floor with a metallic slice and stopped across from Dio's feet, the blade perfectly laid across the thin red line in the floor.

"Ever the dramatic, aren't we?" Dio groaned. He eyed the sword with incredible greed. It was so perfectly bright and sleek, sharp and menacing. It held a quality that exuded its own, living essence, its own natural presence. It forced itself, imposed its will on Dio, and he knew that he had to have it. Before he could act on such thoughts, though his eyes glared so brightly that the even the shadows of villainy that gathered under his brow couldn't dim them, Jojo paced calmly over and took the sword for himself. He met Dio's glare that followed and defended himself with a steadfast, straight face despite the animosity and voracious rage in Dio's bright, glaring grin. Dio straightened up, brushed his hair back despite the pain, and faced Jojo down like a gentleman.

"Must we get petty, Johnathan?" Dio asked.

"If it's a weapon this valuable looking" Jojo said "I don't want you to just have it for no good reason."

"What if I had a good reason?" Dio asked.

"Then I'm listening" Jojo said.

"Why would he attack with this weapon" Dio began "in such a reckless manner, with such abandon and utterly berserk lack of style and substance, unless it had a marked and unique quality about it. Tell me, can you feel anything just from holding it?" Jojo looked down. Only now did he notice, below the wrist, his hand was shaking. He held the sword up and examined it closely. He held it tightly with both hands and gazed at his reflection, and the reflecting red eyes behind his own. Then The World gripped it lightly by the blade and palmed it over, examining and admiring the sterling silver finish and the absolute quality of the blade's razor edge. Both of them were in awe over the blade, so bright and fine, but Jojo could hardly admit that he felt captivated over it, and The World vanished out of boredom. Jojo stabbed the blade into the floor between them and crossed his arms.

"I suspect" Jojo began "this has some kind of properties, but I can't assess what at a glance. I say it should go to the Speedwagon Paranormal Research Branch, the same branch that studies Stands."

"So" Dio said, "Speedwagon found a use for himself, did he?"

"You didn't know?" Jojo asked.

"I heard word of an organization scouting individuals for Stand potential" Dio admitted, crossing his arms. "I hadn't the slightest that the fool Speedwagon himself was its forerunner."

"He isn't" Jojo said. "According to him, Zeppeli is slowly taking over the entire branch with his own knowledge and natural ability with his Stand." Dio's eyes flared at the mention of the name. His past with the man was less than stellar for him to deal with, and Jojo seemed to know that.

"Lord Dio" Rosalisa began. Both boys turned to see her, perched up on the station counter with her legs crossed and her arms keeping her balance. "I have a suggestion, if I may be so bold."

"Please" Dio obliged.

"Let Joestar take it now" she said "and expect it back at a later date. You know he isn't the type to simply let a promise between gentlemen go unfulfilled, regardless of what the promise is." Jojo felt uncomfortable. An inappropriate amount of attention was being cast his way. He tried to summon The World to help him counter the intimidation factor, but the defiant beast within him only looked over its own shoulder, down at him even, and scoffed. His prayers went unanswered, his mercy unfound, and the fateful deal went on despite his own silent protest. A hand was extended and met, and after the exchange of cordiality the sword was drawn up again and Jojo parted, stowing the blade stealthily inside the stolen coat of the mad Judge on the ground, and he left unseen.

* * *

The next morning was filled with panic and chaos and a plethora of conspiracies that erupted from the ground and sprayed into the sky. The power was back on in the city, mass panic had been quelled and the people were peaceful. As for the illustrious Johnathan Joestar, heir to the corporate wonderland that was the Joestar multinational conglomerate firm, he was unreachable for well over a week. When he was found he was casually interviewed, as was his style to be as casual as possible despite his formal upbringing and collegiate setting, he plainly answered to all his rumors with a sheepish grin on his face.

"What could I have done to get in a fight?" Jojo would say. "I was here, trying to study, of course!" And people believed him. All the people of the city believed what they read in the paper, it hadn't lied to them yet and why would it start now? It had no reason to cover the truth of such a minute matter. The people blindly obeyed the news and no one saw through the amazingly unique ruse of misinformation that read that paper. A few people did know what happened, though they were avid news readers.

Starski knew what happened. Since his boss and Jojo struck their esoteric deal, he had been asked to keep a constant watch over the life of the young star in college. He held discrete meetings with the young man whenever possible, posing as an older college student and meeting him in his common library, reading books he brought himself on civil liberty and the lives of reformed gang members as collected by the prisons they were killed in. He only knew what questions to ask and what answers to deliver. Aside from that all he got was optimistic small talk from the wide-framed boy.

"Is Damocles in town?" Starski would ask.

"He's being held in Syracuse" Jojo would respond. That meant no by default. Anything else Starski assumed meant different. "I can't say for certain, but ships are sailing to Greece next week. Perhaps he'll be on one of them..." Such vagueness made Starski worry, but it didn't matter what context he took or what messages he attempted to translate. All that mattered to him was taking the words from one mouth and delivering them to the ears of another.

"I see" Dio would say. "Very well then. Our ports, as always, remain open for him to come..." He would say that, cross his legs in his throne-like chair and lean back to rest his eyes or sleep. Starski would leave immediately, ushered out by the monkey-lizard MB and left to go on with whatever chores he had left to do, tedious and degrading as they were.

Eventually the whole world settled down. Not a single Stand fight erupted. Jojo trained constantly to gain control of The World, secluding himself from the public eye and reemerging covered in sweat and at some odd and lengthy times bruises that healed up to small bumps the next day. REO and his people at his main Washington D.C. Research facility analyzed the sword front and back, every way and back again, looking for definite answers to questions no one had asked. Such was the duty of those who researched the phenomenon known as Stands, beings that couldn't be comprehended by those fortunate enough to be without them.

One day, however, a few weeks after the events with the Judge and his Stand Creeper, a remarkable event occurred at the facility. The sword, kept in an air-tight vacuum for protective purposes, started to react to something. It moved of its own will, manipulating the cables that held it so tightly above the sterile floor, and began to float on its own without any weighted restriction. REO and a team of his most trusted and well-regarded scientists were the first to arrive when the klaxons of movement blared. They rushed to stations while REO observed, a mere child in the presence of great men.

"What's going on!?" REO demanded.

"Spike in neutral energies" one old man said as he flipped switches and darted his eyes from screen to screen. "It's a type-S reaction."

"What?" REO said in astonishment. "That thing's generating a Stand ability?"

"We have positive feedback on negative energies" an older, squatter man said. "Reading high-ionic output at a sub-dimensional level."

"Movement in the field" another man, tall and wrinkled with a lifeless voice called. "Movement in the field."

"Speak up Hauser" a younger doctor, one with all his hair and a naturally brown mustache said. "We can't here you."

"It's moving in there!" he repeated much more clearly with a droning shout.

"Brace it down!" REO commanded. "Get me closer. I'm gonna observe this thing first-hand!" REO removed his lab coat and ran to the edge of the glass, pressing against it lightly with his chain Trapt coiling around his eyes. The world turned a light blue with wavy patterns of air moving through everything. "_Stand Vision!" _he announced. He saw through the 'eyes' of his own Stand with his ability and viewed all the things that only functioned and truly existed on the level below the meaningful resonance of life. He could see the very motions of the Ghost Ripple in action!

The waves of motion in front of the sword stopped for a moment and imploded suddenly. All at once they erupted out and formed a perfect series of concentric circles gathered around the central, circular gold gem in the center of the ornamental handle.

"What is that?" REO asked in sheer wonderment. The men monitoring the readouts of vague, indescribable energy could barely tell but something great was happening. From those concentric ripples was born a single, horizontal slit out of the air. That slit curved slightly and opened. **It was an eye, shallow yet deep, a pale-yellow iris with a tiny, dark pupil in the middle of the huge glistening pool.** It was there for just a moment and then it was gone, vanished with an explosion of energy into a world that went even beyond REO's sight. He drew back from the glass and grasped his head as he fell back into a swivel chair.

"What the shit am I dealing with here?" he asked suddenly. The readouts continued to fluctuate until such random motions became a norm in the system. The chaotic patterns were decrypted and a regular pattern, similar to a heartbeat, was found. Brain waves were detected and were being emitted in gamma rays. The sword brought itself to life through the power of the Ghost. A source of power incarnate now trapped in a bubble made by man, the mighty and ancient device that defied all dating methods and constructive research, and it mocked the efforts of the world's smartest men in their field to understand it...

What was this miraculous discovery?


	42. Stand Sword 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

A full week of intensive studies and tests passed. The Speedwagon foundation had condensed what seemed like months worth of research and theories into a day's worth of presentation and entrusted it all with their young heir Robert. The scientist had him stay in on ever test, every lecture, every dated presentation they made regarding the mysterious silver sword they kept in the vacuumed chamber. Invitations for a presentation on his findings were sent out to the most esteemed and trusted Stand users he knew.

Jojo declined. He was the integral center-piece by which the entire Speedwagon Stand research community seemed to stand upon, and he could not attend at all. _"I know it's all important, but right now I'm in school. If I let my grades slip I'll be doing my father a dishonor. I have to study. Just send me the notes and I'll review them in my spare time, I promise."_ That was his excuse, to which REO, who chose to deliver the invite personally, wordlessly accepted and agreed with. However, without Jojo, getting the others involved would be a bit difficult.

The next invite was sent via personal mailing to Gerald Reach, the user of the space-manipulating Stand Bon Jovi. Gerald's extreme paranoid ways initially instigated a stand off between him and the secret-service representatives of the REO research facility. They fought for a good half-hour before being able to clearly declare their intentions and give the letter out.

"_I need a covered limo"_ Gerald said. _"I can't go out alone anymore...It doesn't need to be long. I can make it as long as I want on the inside, so just make sure I'm escorted unseen and I'll be there..."_ The men agreed with his terms completely and stayed with him until their covered, tinted-windowed car arrived. Then it was off to the next hopeful attendee, Eric Geirtzz of the abandoned Hudson Building. The rooms within were of frigid temperature, prompting the guards and Gerald to wear wool gloves and mufflers as they set out in exploration. Eric called for Gerald over the PA system and rushed down in his casual attire, ignoring the cold, with his Stand Bad Religion floating beside him.

"_That ass-punk REO's got something to say, does he? Well, if that guy wants me there I guess I don't have a choice, do I?"_ So he came with his friend in the escort of the two black-suited guards in their inconspicuous dark blue SUV transport. Gerald's ability stretched the space within by nearly double its length, allowing Gerald to stretch his legs and lie on the floor between the back seats and front seats. The guards stood at attention, the roof having been raised as well, and Gerald concentrated on keeping his skill active as long as possible while exerting minimal energy. The ride took little under an hour to reach the destination, the official paranormal research branch of the Speedwagon foundation and the headquarters of the secret Stand research facility.

The car pulled up to the inside parking curb and let the two boys out with their escorts beside them. Eric and Gerald looked around. They seemed to be in a dismal place, no color on the walls or sources of light aside from the dim lights along the side of the road that led in and out in a U shaped curve. The guards started walking them both forward towards a frimy looking white door. They opened it and the boys were hit with a stagnant blast of air. A stairwell greeted them.

"From here on out" one of the guards began "we have been instructed not to follow you. Mr. Speedwagon is waiting for you in the main facility. Please follow the walkways and paths until you reach it. While we cannot monitor your abilities as normal humans, we would like to ask that you refrain from using your Stand powers at this time, due to the critical testings being held in the facility."

"Whatever" Eric said. He began his descent with Gerald following him close behind. The door shut behind them and they reached the bottom of the stairs. A narrow, square hole with a ladder leading down built into it was all they had now. It was too distant and dark for them to see what was at the bottom of the hole, but the lowing howl of mechanical wind told them that their journey was just beginning.

"After you" Eric said.

"Fuck that!" Gerald exclaimed.

"Hey, dipshit" Eric said, "I can't even _use_ my Stand here! It's gotta be at least 60 degrees for my Stand to be able to move. Any less and I get jack-shit."

"Alright" Gerald hesitantly agreed. He grabbed the metal bars of the ladder and began his slow, careful descent. Eric waited until he was totally out of sight and jumped into the hole as well, grabbing the ladder bars and descending at a more excited, rushed rate than Gerald had. Gerald touched solid ground soon before Eric caught up with him and looked around. They were surrounded by huge metal pipes and steaming machines. Overhead there ran thick, plastic and metal tubes carrying nothing at all that hummed with extremely loud bass. Under them was a solid walkway that reverberated with the rhythmic thuds of sound the great machines and gears gave out. Gerald proceeded through the rust-colored darkness over the walkway and towards an unknown wall. Eric followed, looking around plainly at his surroundings.

"I'd guess" Eric said "it's around 73 in here. Way too hot for Bad Religion. Can you use your Stand alright?"

"I can't see ahead of me" Gerald said "so I can't really notice the maximum distance that I can shrink. I could overdo it accidently and slam us into the wall or crush something important and we could get killed form some explosive decompression in one of these machines! Ohhh, they knew I was coming so they set up this route to be completely against me! I knew it! They're against me, aren't they? She paid them to find me, didn't she!? **ERIC! We've got to get the fuck out of-**" Eric wound up a powerful backhand and smacked the common sense back into Gerald with it. He was thrown to the side and leaned over the guard rails along the walkway in pain, lurching himself over the winding cables and tubes and slender mechanical parts below.

"Ow" Gerald moaned.

"You alright now?" Eric asked.

"Yes" Gerald said, recovering with a wide red area of impact on his cheek. "Thank you. I'm still doing my correspondence therapy for my paranoid schizophrenia."

"DO you hear any voices?" Eric asked.

"Not yet" Gerald answered.

"Then just call it plain paranoia, you ass" Eric said, brushing past him. He walked to the wall, felt for a handle, and pressed it open. There was a strange hiss and mechanical locking in process. It paused, beeped and continued to slide the door away and flash a glaring, white light in their eyes...

* * *

Eric and Gerald were now in the facility, huge and bright, medical and technological from end to end. A great expansive room where men in white coats and sweater vests ran around with charts in hand to view through big, clear bubbles where a single man or woman would sit across from someone on the other side and talk. Eric and Gerald began to move through the facility, being generally ignored in favor of the more interesting subjects held by transparent walls. Eric kept his eyes focused forward and stopped in the middle of a wide opening in the floor. Gerald stopped with him.

"Where the fuck are we going?" Eric wondered aloud.

"We're lost" Gerald said. "....shit."

"I'll ask someone" Eric said. "Don't fucking move."

"Kay" Gerald agreed. Eric departed and left Gerald alone. He didn't like it one bit and began to shake with regret. He decided to start looking around at the people in the plastic walls and their observers. Gerald looked around for Eric in his signature black-and-green mixture and his perfectly half-parted, half-spiked hair, but had already totally lost sight of him. Not wanting to be out in the open, being nervously agoraphobic as he was, Gerald decided to make a rush over to the nearest pod and squeezed himself into the crowd of note-takers. Gerald watched the inside as a pale, tall man with a deadly serious face and scar-covered head stood with his hands together. His clothes were uniform and white, like a hospital ensemble of clean-pressed pants and five-buttoned shirts. He clapped his hands together and began muttering in a romantic string of Italian, and from his head came a Stand.

"Ahhhhh" Gerald sighed in awe. He could see the Stand emerging in its full form. Just as tall and framed just the same as its user, its mechanical body exposed and adorned with barely any armor but enough to cover its featureless groin. It was a sterile shade of white all over and just as plain as its color made it. Its eyes were empty, perfectly round holes, but the rest of its face was bare and featureless. A very normal looking Stand, one with no possible discernible ability. The man clapped his hand together, parted them, and struck a pose. The Stand hovered to stand across from him and face him down in the exact same pose. Gerald saw the reaction before anyone else. A white mist, slithering and thick, hissed out from each mechanical joint of the Stand's body and wrapped itself around its slender, tight frame. Now two men stood inside the bubble, visible to all, and each movement the clothed one made the unclothed, featureless, eyeless clone would make just the same.

The man began to spar with himself. Numbers flashed on a small readout screen monitored by a man scripting the text as it scrolled and finishing just as it vanished. The user of the Stand made short-ranged jabs with his elbows and was countered with the exact same move, over and over. The tedious practice continued until his entire repertoire had been exhausted. Lunging flat-legged kicks, straight left punches, wide right hooks, shoulder charges. It was like he was fighting into a mirror.

"Thank you, Mr. Vericci" the monitor said through an intercom into the bubble room. "That will be all." The man stood upright, placed his hands together at his chest and bowed to his Stand, which dissipated the mist instantly and jumped back into his body, vanishing entirely after that. The standing observers clapped for his efforts and he bowed to them as well. A sliding door opened in the clear glass wall and the crowd dispersed, moving on to the other cages and to other stations where their notes could be used. The man came out of the bubble, startling Gerald, who stayed with nowhere to go, and looked up to the sky uttering a short holy limerick in Italian. He turned his pale-blue eyes to Gerald and gave him a smile. Gerald stood shock still and waited. His paranoia said to be ready, but his heart gave sway to relax.

"Be with God, young one" the man said in a heavy accent of Roman inclination. He bowed with his hands pressed together. Gerald swallowed his fear and gave him a quick, prayer bow as well. The man stood up, turned and left straight afterward, leaving Gerald alone once more. Agoraphobia set in once more and he rushed to find a crowd.

"There you are!" Eric said, grabbing Gerald's ear and pulling him in towards him. "I lost you, pal. See anything cool?"

"You could say that" Gerald said, strained with pain.

"Anyway" Eric said, "I asked around and this chick in here should know where we're supposed to go. We just have to wait for her to do...whatever it is she's doing."

"Who?" Gerald asked. Eric grabbed him by the head and moved him through the crowd. A woman was sitting inside the bubble room, on a chair, in front of a brick wall where on the other side was a stool with an apple on top. Her face, at the angle, was hidden by her wavy brown hair. Her sterile white shirt had no sleeves. They had been manually hemmed at the shoulders. The crowd hushed and she cast a quick glance to them. Her hair continued to cover the right side of her face, revealing only her full, rosy lips as she grinned. She stood up and walked over to the brick wall and pressed her hand to it. A transparent echo surged on the other side of the wall. A hand appeared from the air and traveled through the brick wall to take hers. She gripped the hand and let it pull her arm through the wall, **passing her hand and arm through the solid surface.** The people of the studious crowd were amazed as much as anxious and started taking notes.

"That's her Stand?" Eric said skeptically. "Just a hand and an arm?"

"But it moved her through the wall" Gerald said in contest. "She passed through solid matter. That's a useful ability no matter who you are."

"Then what's keeping her here?" Eric asked, remaining ever skeptical and cynical. The hand that pulled her brought her to the apple which she grasped lightly in her palm. The Stand hand lifted her hand up and turned it around, folding the fingers over the apple, then began pushing her hand gently away through the wall. It stopped in stall when the apple touched the wall and everyone leaned in closely. The hand continued to press in its ginger way, increasing its pressure slightly, giving more force gradually, but the apple stayed firm and impassible. The Stand then drew back and jammed her hand back through the wall, stopping just after it had cleared the wall entirely. Upon contact the apple was crushed and all that remained in the girl's hand was a pulpy mess of juicy shredded fruit. She sighed and dropped it to the floor. Her Stand left. With her presentation over she turned to the crowd and shrugged with a grin.

* * *

After the presentation and a lengthy dialogue with a white-coat and haired doctor the woman was approached quite suddenly by a man with bizarrely dichotomous hair and his timid, dark-blue clothed companion. The aggressive man with the half-and-half head pursed his green-painted lips and furrowed his cleanly smoothed brows at her as he leaned into her pretty face half-hidden by her hair. He brought his black-painted nails upand brushed her hair from her face, receiving a swift slap in retaliation.

"Good news, Gerald" Eric said, turning around with a red mark on his face. "She doesn't have any disgusting looking disfigurement on the other side of her face."

"Okay" Gerald said reservedly. _I don't know why that's at all relevant..._

"Can I help you gentlemen?" she asked. She smiled her curvy lips and batted the lashes of her gorgeous green eyes, aiming primarily at Gerald.

"We're looking for REO" Eric said, standing tall against her. "He invited us to some punk-ass presentation or something. I don't know. Anyway, where is he? I've never been in here before..."

"Really?" she said, fanning her fingers up to her face. "But, you're Stand users, aren't you?"

"Eh?" Eric grunted. "MY Stand isn't out, is it?"

"You're fly is unzipped" Gerald pointed out "but your Stand isn't." Eric looked back at Gerald who shied his eyes away, then down at his own pants. Nearly all of his zippers on the thick-fabric cargo jeans he wore were open, including the main one. Thankfully the button was still on. He zipped it up and started zipping the others up as well, having no trouble with those on his left leg but finding something tugged against him on the other.

"It's probably RoDaggio" the girl said.

"Who?" Eric asked.

"He's a powerful Stand user here" she explained "who can control **magnetism.** His power usually spikes and grows exponentially to attract specific types of metal, even through the composite plastic-concrete walls."

"A magnetic Stand, huh?" Eric said, shoving his last zipper into place. "Shit. This place is raising an army, isn't it?" Gerald cringed frightfully. The paranoid visions of a warzone flashed before his eyes, imitating the streaming images of a long-passed viewing of _Saving Private Ryan_ where he saw only the few people he knew in life walking around without arms and carrying dead bodies and hiding in dead bodies. The nightmare continued as an explosion turned his attention to the top of the Normandy beach and the countless rogue soldiers wearing the demonically stretched-faced masks of that terrible woman that assailed him long ago. They fired their guns and lobbed their grenades with a terrible black cloud of smoke behind them.

"HEY!" Eric shouted, snapping Gerald out of his fantasy and smacking him on the top of his head. "Useless shit! She's taking us somewhere! Try to keep up!"

"Sorry" Gerald said. He hurried and caught up with Eric and the woman as she led them deeper and farther down a wide, ocean-green tiled hall with a domed roof of hexagonal tiles overhead. She kept them toeing a path-leading line in a rhythmic step. Gerald hadn't noticed just how long and winding the tunnel happened to be until he finally saw a wider area lying far beyond. They entered through one of twelve sliding doors that led deeper still into the secretive facility. With the fast keying of a pad on the wall the woman opened the lock and allowed them to walk ahead of her. Eric swayed his arms as he strode, forcing Gerald to stay a few steps back from his wide marching arcs. Gerald kept his back slouched tierdly and his hands in his pockets, twirling the thin metallic needles he kept as weapons for emergency combat.

They walked through a glowing hallway of hexagonal tiles that shot off sparks of light unevenly and all around them. The only safety from the tube of hexagons was the clear walkway they entered on. The light seemed to be dampening them somehow. They adapted the glow after so long traveling and the glare of each flash seemed to fade as the light from far up ahead got brighter and brighter.

"What's with these lights, exactly?" Eric asked, wearing shades to shield his eyes.

"Where'd you get those?" Gerald asked.

"These lights" the woman explained "are from ultra-viridian radiation. Meaning, super-green light that permeates with a natural anti-Stand sort of resonance energy. Basically, it's a protective measure to dull the natural powers of any given Stand user not equipped with proper equipment to deflect the radiation before entering."

"What!?" Eric shouted. Gerald felt somewhat relieved. The only saving grace of his Stand weakening was that any other enemy waiting to trap him would be weakened if they went through this as well. "Why didn't you say so before!? Not like I can use mine anyway, it's too hot, but without Gerald's Stand at the very least we're defenseless! Are you trying to kill us, bitch!?" Eric tried to make a rush for her but she retaliated and manifested a knotted fist from the thin air around her shoulder. An ethereal punch was thrown. Eric stopped and summoned up the protective, frozen plated armor of his Stand and blocked the punch, but his Stand was weakened even further in its static state by the ultra-viridian energy all around him. Flashes followed him as he staggered back, like shimmering glares of light shining from the ripples of a pond's surface.

"Cut it out!" Gerald demanded. "She's wearing the armor!"

"She is?" Eric said. "How can you tell? Do you know what it looks like?" Gerald shook his head.

"She wouldn't do that if she weren't, right?" he said, motioning the proper reply off to the woman who guided them. She nodded and smiled politely.

"I'm surprised you could gather that so quickly" she said.

"You shouldn't be" Eric said before Gerald could open his mouth fully to speak in more humble words. "This kid's a fucking genius. He's got a full ride at the most prestigious school around, the Presely something-or-whatever, cause he's a fucking genius!" Gerald shifted uncomfortably. The woman was looking at him as if she was trying to test and determine an exact measure of his presumed genius just by prying her ghostly vision through his heart and soul to look into the rugged, malformed workings of his deepest mind. He looked away at first, then doubled his eyes back and saw her smile at him. Bashfully, he turned away and proceeded down the glowing hall, flashes of light chasing after him.

"He's a bit shy, isn't he?" she asked.

"No" Eric said, still defensive and angry, "he's protective of himself, and a little worried most of the time. That's it. He isn't some autistic fuck-up case or anything."

"I see" she said. Eric growled and walked on after Gerald. She proceeded to follow them at a safe distance, leaving the boys to silently pace through the glowing green hall together...

* * *

At the end of the hall was another sliding mechanical door. They entered it and waded through a dark shadow of a well-lit room wherein existed a table and at least twenty chairs. REO Speedwagon sat at the head of the table beside two old men in white coats, one wearing a thick moustache and the other stout and stocky with tiny framed glasses to fit his wide, squinting eyes. Eric took up the opposite side of the long sided, crystal-like octagonal table head. Gerald sat beside him and the woman sat beside him, pleasantly grinning at him while he shyly grinned back in between Eric's hushed kicks from under the table.

In time more apparent scientists and Stand users entered the room, among them the man whose head was covered in scars and two of his escorts, a man in an all white protective uniform with an added fedora and shades who walked in alone with a strangely metallic shaped bulge in his pocket. Two more Stand users walked in, one wearing a shirt that seemed to glow green from the inside. He seemed healthy from his complexion and his vivacious glow of personality, but there was a strange, floating quality about him that made him seem unapproachably ill, a paleness in his eyes and a silken limp quality in each strand of his hair and a terribly distant forlorn tiredness in his eyes. He sat alone, taking up the lone side of the table to the left of Eric and the right of REO, across from the man in the fedora hat. The last man to enter was a large man, full of girth and life, walking with a boisterous gathering of youthful scientists and doctors. He took up the seats nearest REO, he and his enterouge, while still the sick-looking man was given a single space to himself on either side. Even so, Eric shied away visibly.

"Thank you all for coming" REO said, his voice booming over the span of the room through ceiling-mounted speakers. "As the heir to my estate and the current head of this institution of Stand research, I have called this meeting to inform you all of a newly discovered advancement of science that we, in this field, have made."

"Question" Eric called from across the table. REO stood up and politely motioned the floor to him. Eric kicked his legs up onto the table and leaned back disrespectfully in his chair. "Are you treating us to dinner? Or is this an 'employee's only' kind of thing?" The fat man laughed with his group lightly tittering beside him. The others looked away and the scar-headed man simply gave a complacent grin. Gerald just sat perfectly still.

"We have discovered" REO went on "a weapon usable by humans and **harmful to Stands.**" The room got frighteningly quiet at an alarming rate. Even the mirthful, girthful man and his friends silenced at REO's proclamation.

"That's impossible" a scientist escorting the praying man exclaimed. "We've done nothing but legitimate research regarding the existence and malleability of the life force of Stands. They exist not on the physical, human plane of energy, but on an entirely different, overlapping realm of energy! They are entirely above physical manipulation outside of direct manipulation of opposing Stand energy!"

"What?" Eric grunted, leaning toward Gerald.

"Only Stands can hurt Stands" Gerald said.

"Duh" Eric grunted back. "We all know that already, one way or another."

"I've tested this myself" REO said, rolling up his sleeve. There were glowing scratch marks on his arm, shallow but still wide and random enough to rule out the possibility of anything natural. "By having a fellow scientist use the weapon on my Stand, Trapt, he was able to not only temporarily shatter my Stand but cause me direct injury as well!" A sudden upheaval of gasps. Everyone seemed shocked. REO motioned to one of his nearby scientists to start something up. The ceiling opened into a room above and a clear, thick-glassed cage was slowly delivered onto the flat surface of the conference table. Eric took his legs away and stood straight up upon seeing it. Everyone left their seat in a fit of fantastic disbelief as they beheld it, **a silver sword suspended in an airtight glass capsule.**

"That...'s the weapon!?" Eric asked in a dry, breathless voice.

"Oh lord" the praying man said, throwing a quick cross in the air with his fingers. Even the calm and complacent woman held her hands to her mouth and gasped. All the Stand users could see it. The fractures in space around the sword. **Not the glass nor the air but the very reality surrounding the sword seemed to be cracked, and through those cracks they could see the seething, venomous eyes of many unknown, terrible things....**


	43. Stand Sword 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The roundtable discussion had reached a certain stalling. The Sword that resonated strongly with an unliving, ethereal, arcane existence, was staring down the Stand users with a myriad of dark, gazing eyes. The eyes appeared through cracks in space that led into a dark, mysterious place beyond human understanding. Everything implacable and terrifying, all the humorless fear of the unknown in the human mind was stirred up like dust in a tornado within the hearts of the observers. Then, in an instant, it was all gone and a plain, silver sword was mounted in a glass case before them. No one bothered to speak up for a while. Eric was the first to move and stood to his feet.

"What.....the fuck was that?" he asked. He darted his head suddenly to the fat man surrounded by good people. "Was that you, fucking with us, fatty?" The fat man was still so utterly stunned and speechless that he couldn't reply.

"Obviously it wasn't him" the dangerous, fedora'd man said. He was the first to recover his cool, it seemed, as he leaned back in his seat with his brim pulled over his eyes. "None of us have a power to do...whatever that was. Not unless it happened to be one of you two." He glared at Gerald with a hot, suspicious gaze. Gerald was pulled into it and looked back, fearful and wide-eyed in shock.

"Mr. Network" REO said, pulling the man's gaze to the other end of the table. "Neither of these men, nor any man in here, possesses the ability to do such a thing. It was the sword itself. It possesses, believe it or not, a Stand of its own. Thus far, aside from what you've all seen, this Stand has no measured ability but a constant presence. That being said, I'd like us all to move into sub-station 22Q for a live demonstration." He turned to one of the men at his side and moved close to give him discreet instructions. After a short typing session at a private terminal, the glass case around the Sword rose back up into the ceiling and the tiles closed back up.

Most of the Stand users got up to move. The fat man was pulled up and shook off his terror with a palm to his head, regaining what seemed to be his lost balance. Mr. Network stood up and adjourned himself with a hand over his hat. Gerald saw, as he left, the stringy lengths of hair tied in a ponytail tucked underneath his collar.

"Shall we?" the girl said. Gerald turned to her and nodded. They stood up together with Eric rising from his seat to crack his neck with a rolling of his head.

"Hey" the fat man called, catching Eric's gaze. He was waving and grinning. "No hard feelings. In all truth, I suspected one of you two as well!" Eric nodded and looked away.

"Yeah, sorry" he said. "Got a bit outta control, I think. Say, where're we going now?"

"The observation room" one of the females in the man's group said. "They're obviously intent on demonstrating the power of this weapon firsthand for our benefit."

"Just follow Anetta" the fat man called. "She knows this place better than most of us thanks to her Stand! Seeya there!"

"Anetta?" Gerald said. The girl turned and swept the hair from one side of her face, letting the other side stay curtained by her brunette locks. She nodded and smiled sweetly. "That's...a-a nice name, Anetta."

"Thank you, Gerald" she said. Eric broke through them with a shoving shoulder and followed after the praying man and his escort.

"I'll meet you there" he called. "Jethro here's gonna take me there himself!" He walked close at the heels of the scar-headed man and left Gerald and Anetta alone in the room until she decided to move. She and Gerald walked through another hexagonal hallway with the glass walls and floor sealed off by thick black material.

"These halls are deactivated" she explained, "but in case of an emergency they can be turned on to an extremely high setting like that." She snapped for effect, though her fingers made no noise. Gerald snapped for her, making a perfect loud crack as his finger hit against the padding beneath his thumb. Anetta just nodded and turned forward to guide him, leaving him standing in an awkward silence.

"I'm sorry" he said at length. "I guess, with a power like intangibility, touch is something you'd naturally lose, right?" Anetta stopped and forced Gerald to stagger back to avoid running into her. She turned with a surprised look on her face at the mouth-gaped boy who shifted against the wall uncomfortably.

"You really _are_ smart" she said, building her mood back up into a sociable, happy one. Gerald was revealed to see her smile and turn to him with a smile. What worried him was the mist-colored, featureless arm and hand with wiggling fingers that hung in the air to her side. "My Stand can pass through anything, including other Stands, and regain its spectral properties at will. It's not very strong, but I can use it at a very long distance already, so its advantages are obvious."

"And information feedback" Gerald said, now eager and into the conversation, "is that asynchronous?"

"Oh no" she said. "I see what it sees when my eyes are closed."

"That _is_ useful" Gerald said. "I'm sorry you have to use it for, obviously, para-military purposes."

"Oh, I don't mind" she admitted. "It's better than having no control over it at all, I suppose. The REO Foundation has really helped a lot of us, though it may be hard to see from the cold, military exterior."

"The best of intentions" Gerald said as if quoting "can be hidden under the most dangerous facades, I suppose. Sorry. I get a bit too wordy when I talk at length. Um, shouldn't we hurry along?"

"Of course" she said, withdrawing her Stand at last. Gerald followed after her in a short, slow run. They went through the hall and arrived at the room where the fat man and his group were waiting with a held high-weight capacity lift held open for them.

"Took you long enough" the fat man said. "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up at all."

"Sorry" Gerald said as he shrank into a corner by himself. "We were talking...because I was a bit curious."

"Well that's good!" the fat man said. "I'm Day, if you wanted to know. That's what people call me. My real name is Martin Andrew Day. Ah, what's all this talk doing to introduce me? Put er there!" He extended his big hand Gerald's way. Gerald placed his own in it cautiously and shook, finding the man's grip almost surprisingly gentle for one who had such an aggressively outgoing personality. Gerald looked to Anetta, who was smiling, and felt a swelling of warmth inside his chest. A warmth of trust. So he too smiled in the company of friends.

* * *

The lift reached a floor several unmeasured minutes from the apparent surface where Gerald had departed from. The heavy metal doors slid open and the lift guardrails retracted and swung inward. Day walked from the lift first, and the entire structure jerked up, rocking Gerald off balance and onto his side.

"Whoops!" Day exclaimed with a bout of laughter. "I'm glad it didn't break down this time, aren't you?" His posse followed after him laughing and enjoying their combined presence. Gerald pushed himself to his hands and knees and groaned. He saw that Anetta was standing with her feet bent and her toes pointing inward, an inverse V position, and that she hadn't wavered in the slightest. She turned with a brush of her hair from her face and offered Gerald a hand up. More used to simply doing things to survive on his own, Gerald used his Stand Bon Jovi to pull him up. The fact that he made it to his feet surprised him and he looked in disbelief at the sliding gauge on the long arm that characterized his very inner powers.

"!!!" he gasped. "My, my Stand! It's active! Did the ultra-viridian radiation wear off already!?"

"It must have" Anetta said, guiding him forward. Gerald stepped out onto a hard, concrete floor and heared the lift closing itself and moving in the wall behind him. The metal doors were shut by the time he turned around to see them. "It's just through here" Anetta called. Gerald turned and followed after her slight figure walking down a wide, winding path. To his immediate right, Gerald saw a huge glowing white platform mounted by a strange, rounded device resembling a sketch of an Atomic Bomb he had studied before. The floor of operations under that high-risen platform was barren of life but had many glowing terminals and computers, as well as a mechanical rise that went up to the level of the bright object. As Gerald moved past it at an angle, he saw that the entire thing was behind thick glass. Then a wall of concrete which held up the roof blocked his sight and he turned forward again.

Coming his way from around a corner was a small car driven by a man in a lab coat with bullet-proof armor underneath, army cargo pants and black leather combat boots. On the seat next to him was a shotgun with a solid chrome barrel and a softened butt for more rapid-firing with less arm damage from recoil and a cartridge load near the trigger. Gerald took a particular notice to the gun, and the man who seemed proud to have it as his arms. Then the car passed and its haul, a chain of three identical boxes with the same pharmaceutical insignia trained by. Of course, it was REO Enterprises.

Anetta turned the corner and Gerald followed her out of the short tunnel and into an immense room with a large, glowing central platform bordered by metal conduits that emitted a solid blue light. At each corner of the square platform border there was a long and wide metal conduit that extended at an angle and then flattened out parallel to the platform base near the tip. Each metal point came within inches of touching and illuminated the hard concrete ceiling with a swirling blue. Thick metal cables ran from the platform to huge terminals on elevated concrete overlooking the platform area, operated by teams of technicians wearing goggles, gloves and all manner of bodily protective gear against, at a glance, fire.

The glass case with the Sword inside had been opened and the sword was placed in full view for the Stand users and ordinary humans to view and get frightfully close to at their own discretion. Eric leaned in, touched it and jumped away on one leg, expecting the weapon to jump up and bite at him like a dog. He stopped and scratched his head curiously, smoothing the slicked side of his head and then ruffling the wild half of his hair.

"Why isn't it responding?" Eric wondered.

"Try touching it with your Stand" a scientist said.

"I can't" Eric said.

"Why not?" another old man asked.

"I just can't!" Eric shouted. "Fuck off!"

"That's enough of that" REO said. "You don't have to explain yourself to strangers, but don't bad mouth my staff in my Foundation headquarters."

"What're you gonna do about it, pansy?" Eric asked. REO's brow twitched and his lips curled up in anger. Gone was REO the professional, and now the cool and angry young fighter was out. He adjusted his bowler derby hat and pressed himself up against Eric, chest to chest, with a mighty sneer of vicious combative youth across his mouth.

"You wanna fuck around with me, bitch?" REO said in his Brooklyn drawl. "I'll take you across town on a silver, fucking chariot and drag you by your heels right off the goddamn face of the Earth!"

"Let's dance, goldi-fucks!" Eric growled. They prepared to square off, Eric with his strong, fierce hand tensed into a fist and Trapt wrapped around REO's arm.

"No" a scientist said, getting between them with a push and a grasp of their wrists. He had a very serious, methodical look upon his aged, sagging face and a furrow in his wrinkled brow. "Let's go to work, young sirs. Mr. Speedwagon, I believe that this is your experiment to sit in on. Shall we send this young man in as the subject?"

"I shall go" the scar-headed man said.

"Jethro?" Eric said. He disrobed his white coat and stripped himself down to his bare essentials, a cloth thong and a faithful appearance. "Gah, put your pants on, dammit!"

"He's a strange man" Day said, shaking his head. "He used to be a priest in Italy, in line to be an arch-bishop in Rome itself, but his Stand powers developed and he was influenced by the sway of their power to steal and injure a great many of his close followers. He was convicted of conspiracy against the church and exiled, whereupon he was hunted by Italian national police forces for his powers that led to his exile. For those reasons he fled Italy and came here, seeking redemption and help to control and better understand his Stand powers."

"That's when he came here" Mr. Network, the mysterious man leaning in the shadows, continued "and discovered the power of his Stand." Eric and Gerald looked through the shining blue light and into the platform ring. A large man in a white lab coat, a man of muscle with a frayed warrior's beard of dark brown and gray around his wide jawline with a bristled, dry mustache across his lip. He was a mean looking man of great stature who took hold of the silver Stand Sword with his long reach and pulled it into the arena. Gerald finally understood approximately what he was looking at, as the ordinary men and women looked on with the same sense of wonderment and horror that he and the other Stand users shared. A streak of blue echoed the movements of the Sword as the man moved it and when he swung it into a fight stance the space cracked behind it and quickly repaired itself, like wounds in reality scabbing over.

The arena wasn't for show or for study, but for benefit. **The Stand energy was easily seen by both users and ordinary humans as long as it was within that particular field of blue.** Gerald tested his theory further by getting close and moving his Stand into the field of blue.

"What are you doing?" the sag-faced elder man shouted to Gerald. He withdrew his Stand at once and darted his head the man's way. "Don't interrupt the proceedings any further."

"Sorry" Gerald said.

"....kick your wrinkled ass...." Eric said under his breath. REO didn't bother to hear him. He just watched intently. The Italian clapped his hands together and summoned his Stand, the marionette with no features and let it quickly take on his own appearance. A short burst of applause sounded out. The strong man shouted and charged forward. The Stand user brought his Stand in front and began moving, his copy mimicking his movements exactly. He leaned away from the Sword and then punched into the field of cracked space. The cracks **wrapped around his arm**, like barbed wire snapping and tangling around its victim to keep them in place with pain. The man certainly had the shocked look of a man caught in the winding, snaring trap as the sword was brought around in a wide arc to deliver a final blow.

"Nothing lethal" the elder said through a speaker. "Just a demonstration." The burly wielder shouted and hit the Stand on the head as lightly as he could. The Stand was jostled around just as it had been hit by a strong, solid Stand-energy force and the effects were transferred to its user. The Stand and user sank down together but the user's arms were both on the floor, cupped one on top of the other, while his Stand's arm stayed suspended and numb in the tangling barbs of the cracks in reality.

"Uh" the gruff, muscular man groaned, "what do we do about this? I don't think I can just, you know, brush them away at all."

"The test is over" the old man said. "Please recover Mr. Medici and help him exit the area. The gruff man nodded, put the sword down gently and picked up the defeated user who was muttering prayers to himself with half-lucid eyes. His Stand vanished and along with it the brambles of warped reality....

"That's the long and short of it" REO said. "The only thing left to do is an in-depth examination of the sword. Possible Stand development and sentience testing, then if at all possible, **replication experimentation.**" That last bit caught the attention of nearly everyone in the room, particularly Eric and Gerald.

"Replication?" Eric said. "You wanna make more of those!? What the fuck for!?"

* * *

A trans-Atlantic flight had just taxied its way onto the runway and a baggage check was being run in the plane's cargo hold. The passengers who were cleared got up and left after the attendants came and spoke with them. This was a first-class flight, and the security measures of the airport were doing everything in their available power to make sure nothing was going to happen to the various diplomats, papal superiors, artists and executive level travelers on board.

"Miranda Louvre?" an attendant on the plane called out. A single woman stood up and turned her pretty, pale face his way. "We need some confirmation on your baggage."

"Alright" she said. She got out of her seat and followed him to the rear of the plane where the luggage was stored. He walked her to the very back where a single box marked all over with red tape to keep it together and loudly printed 'FRAGILE' stickers were posted in all sorts of different languages.

"We're a bit concerned" the attendant said "that your luggage may contain some sort of....contagion of some kind. Would you be kind enough to open it?"

"Well, of course, sir" she said, "but a girl like me pry open a solid wooden crate? That's a bit difficult, I'd say, to do alone. I need a crowbar or some sort of proper device to open it with. Don't you agree?"

"Miss" the man said in a humorless tone, "I know you can open this box with your hands. The bolts are attached to handgrips so they can be twisted off by anyone. Not only that, but the box isn't actually sealed in any of its creases. It's emitting a cool air constantly, despite the heat signature inside of it."

"....and just how do you know all _that?_" she asked with increasing suspicion. The man stared blankly at her and jerked his head, signaling her to move to it promptly. She silently obeyed and undid the twisting bolts on the front side of the box. The side fell open and revealed an upright standing black case that seemed to be emitting a visibly cold air from its imperfect seal.

"What's in there?" he demanded coldly. The girl looked over her shoulder at him and pulled the case out. She steadied it on the metal hold floor and stood by it with a haughty grin.

"Open it" he said. Her eyes glared out suddenly. She knelt down carefully and began to open the case. The man watched her adamantly, his sporty crew cut and pale blue eyes measuring the girl down and forcing her hands to move against her will. She struggled with the first lock, obviously nervous, obviously hiding something. The attendant reached to his side where a gun was hidden under his tucked shirt and prepared to draw it out.

Behind him was the shadow of death, stalking up with cold, glowing hands. The man snapped and pulled out his gun. With a combat roll he appeared behind the girl and pressed the silent, riot pistol to her temple.

"Don't move" he growled "or little-miss here's going to wake up with a busted skull!"

"Really?" the shadow said, posing haughtily with hand son cocked hips, a sway in its loose and billowing robes. The figure of a woman came out from the darkness, slowly but surely, and gave off the thick, powerfully managed figure of a strong woman with long, snake-like hair. Her face was carved with masculine features, high cheekbones and thin, angular lips while her deep-set eyes had long lashes and a bright hue of brown. "You're gonna cap her with a rubber pistol?"

"These are lead pellets" he said. "At this distance, with the fire rate, they can easily break bones."

"Just humor him, Astella" the girl said. The robed figure pumped her arms and moved back a step. "Could you be a dear and open this case for me?" Astella grinned and extended her arm toward the case. The latches broke off and the lid slowly opened. The man, undaunted by the display of power, moved to look within the case, keeping his gun pressed tight against Miranda's temple. After all the mist and cold steam had cleared away, he saw a lone standing pedestal with a glass case on top, crusted over with freeze.

"What's in there!?" he demanded loudly. Miranda's eyes steeled over with a furious, murderous glare and her lips curled into a beautiful smile. She slammed her elbow into the man's side and stunned him. Then she circled around and snapped the gun from his hand with a kick to his wrist. As he struggled on the ground he felt a freezing hand grip his throat. Suddenly his breathing halted and his lungs burned with a painful, freezing hollowness. Astella was holding out her hand to grip him while Miranda wheeled the pedestal out into the open for him to see.

"In here" Miranda began "is all that I have abandoned for the cause of greatness. All that I have cast aside as a human to become **a god.**" She wiped down the icy exterior with the silk sleeve of her shirt and let the man see inside. From an arcane part of his stored knowledge a flood of memory blasted through his mind, and in an instant this man recognized the object within as a whole, intact, **perfectly extracted and preserved uterus.** Even the ovaries connected by the fallopian tubes were intact and in the position he had memorized from various biology books. It even included the cervix and vagina down to the vulva opening. A perfect specimen, which this mad-eyed woman stood without. "This is mine, so I don't think a license to carry it is necessary." With that remark she stored it back into its case, re-latched the locks and taped it all back together with insulating tape she grabbed from the man's waist.

"You can release him" Miranda said. "He looks sufficiently dead now." Astella grinned and clutched her hand. The man's head, shining and icy, **shattered like fragile, frozen glass**. His body fell to the floor, rigid and still, while his skin cracked and pale red blood oozed out only to freeze against his sparkling, icy skin. "Don't stop there" Miranda said. "Keep going. **No evidence.**" Astella lowed and pressed her palm against the air. An icy, bone hand returned to her body from her target and she pounded her fist into her hand, glaring down with vindication and rage. The body had been reduced **to pure snow. The blood was ice, frozen to the metal hull, the flesh was flaky powder, the organs were wet and compact rifts, all that was once a human had frozen over into nothing but icy, crystal water.**

"I'd say we're safe" she said.

"Not entirely" Miranda said as she lifted the case into the air behind her, using only the power of her mind. "We need to make a proper exit before we're discovered."

"I've arranged that already" Astella said. She moved to the side and placed her hands to her front, framing the coming presence of a man who seemed to walk out of thin air. "Allow me to introduce a most interesting man I've met. He has guaranteed us safe travel from here to our destination for a slight fee."

"It's hardly slight" the man said through his belt-covered body. "It's actually quite fare, all things considered." There stood the mercenary, **Trip**, with his arms crossed and covered completely in loose belts and wrappings, all green and blue blending together in a hypnotic light.

"I see" Miranda said. "You could be of great use to me in the future."

"I get that a lot" Trip said with a casual nodding of his head. He marched calmly over to the cargo hold door and opened it. The men outside were **already dead.** "Shall we go, ladies? Just stick close to me and I'll walk you to my getaway car."

"I've always wanted to drive in a getaway car" Astella said as she marched his way. Miranda followed after and stood side-by-side with the mystery mercenary.

"If this is some kind of double-cross" Miranda whispered "where someone against me has you under their employ, I won't hesitate to kill you."

"I wouldn't either" Trip said. "Thankfully for you, I only ever take one job at a time. Double-crosses are considered meta-layered jobs to me. Now then, let's get going." Trip clapped his hands together and summoned up his Stand, "**Smoke on the Water!**" The ethereal giant of crystals appeared, a hovering torso of sharp-angled mirrors, and burst itself apart to surround the area around Trip with a stealth barrier. He jumped down, followed by both girls, and they were gone from all the sight and intelligence of humanity. His power of reflection, refraction and the prismatic bending of light had vanished all traces of his presence and the presence of those within his sphere of power, and with that power they walked across the runway to an inconspicuous car hidden under a reflective tarp behind one of the airport hangars.

"Please" Trip said, holding the door for the ladies. Miranda bowed to him and inserted her case first, keeping it upright and properly angled with her own Stand, a thick tentacle surrounded by a miasma of black. Astella sat up front while Miranda stayed in the back. Trip circled around, keeping the area around his car hidden with his Stand, and sat behind the wheel.

"Uh-oh" Trip said. Both girls turned to him with killing intent. He grinded the gears awkwardly and shifted in his seat. "They gave me a stick-shift. I haven't driven one of these in years. Just bear with me, girls. It may take me a minute to adjust to things."

"I have time" Miranda said. "Just please, keep us steady. This is precious cargo I'm carrying."

"Precious and bizarre" Trip said. "I saw what that was. Why in all hell would you do that?" Miranda grinned, evil and deep.

"Stranger things than this have transpired" she said. "I was just **fulfilling someone a favor I owed....**" Trip nodded and laughed in triumph.

"Alright, I've got it now!" he exclaimed. "Guide me as best you can. Once you leave this car you're not my problem, so pick a good spot to get out and stay out the first time, got it?" Miranda just smiled and nodded in understanding. All the evil in the world, hanging in the sky as a sinister blackness, wasn't enough to faze Trip. His wallet was filled and his job was detailed. That's all he needed to justify his actions that currently worked against humanity as a whole....


	44. Return of MUSE

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The world kept on spinning, slower for some than others, it seems. In the week of class and school since Jojo's recovery, he and Erina had become close and were officially having a date on the town for their day off from classes. Jojo drove his own car, a loaner from his good friend REO, and took Erina around the city from place to place, sold-out movie to sold-out show and finally settled on eating before anything else. They stopped at a diner, parked along the street, but in their romantic seclusion they were quickly spotted by a passer by on the street. A young man wearing bright green pants and a matching leather jacket with a cleanly pressed white wife-beater underneath and a stylish wool beret cap.

Brad Bangalter, user of the Stand Linkin Park, saw his acquaintance from battles long past, Johnathan Joestar, the man who woke his sleeping Stand and imbued him with the amazing powers over the energy of movement that had made him a local legend. In only the short week since his Stand emerged, he had mastered all of the abilities he previously had as well as integrated them seamlessly into his expert free-running. He smiled into the window and moved up, seeing Jojo talking with a girl, completely absorbed into her works and eyes in his cool, confident way. She was leaning forward and talking at him with a distant, longing look in her eyes, the look of _amore_.

Brad smiled and moved across the glass wall to walk into the shop, hopping leg across leg as he walked, weaving and juking out of the ways of walking people and waitresses. He spun a girl carrying a tray around, took the tray in perfect balance on his finger, spun her again and gave her the tray, absorbing the energy of its spin and the teetering force of its balance. He tapped a tea saucer on a table and it suddenly wobbled, nearly spilling the tea in it to the utter shock of the diners. He kept an arrogant hop in his step and approached Jojo's table with a witty grin across his cheek. He knocked on the table and caught the attention of both Jojo and Erina. They both looked at him with a bit of surprise, though Erina had a more cynical smile on her face than Jojo did.

"_Bonjour_, everyone" Brad said as he leaned over the table. "Jojo, Erina. How are things going?"

"Hello Brad" Erina greeted. "Steal anything good lately?"

"No" Brad said, pulling out his pockets. "I haven't gotten too lucky as of late. I've mostly been placing bets on my parkour skills, foot-racing people for money and what-not, to get by. I guess it's kid stuff to you big-time college students, right?"

"Well" Jojo began "at least you're using your powers for good....or at least better than just petty stealing. You're not planning on going into serious stealing, are you?"

"Nah" Brad said. "I'm more classy than that. Besides, I've got a much longer future to think of for now. I can't go to jail on some minor conviction BS like that, right? I've got too much ahead of me to screw up so early."

"Good mentality" Jojo said. He got up and ushered Brad under his arm away from the table. "You're really thinking forward now, aren't you?" he said, forcing a grin out of Brad with his tauntingly patronizing style. "You're a smarter guy than that, right? You're not just some average kid in the street right?" Jojo knew that he was just far enough that Erina wouldn't be able to hear him. "I'm going to be respectful and ask you something: have you fought any other Stand users recently?"

"That's the thing" Brad said. "After my Stand wouldn't respond last week, I couldn't use it for three whole days. When I woke up it was just there, with me, and working perfectly! Check it out. I can store up all kinds of kinetic energy and **stop moving objects flat with just my palm.** I tested it out, too. A guy threw a punch at me, I caught it, used my Stand and just poked him with the same energy. He got a punch where I touched him! It's incredible! I love my Stand! My control's gotten so much better, too, since I've been practicing, but I calculated it. I can only keep it active and working for at most **2 straight hours.** After that it just leaves for a day. Is yours like that too?"

"Listen" Jojo said, his face stern and commanding. "I need you to be more careful. There are more Stand users in this city than you think, and I'm the most gracious one of them. I realize how exciting that power can be, and how beneficial you can make it, but there are people out there willing to kill you just for siding with me and talking to me in public. You have to be careful not to let your presence as a user be known around here! Your power is incredibly useful for others, so keep some discretion when you're on your own, okay?"

"Got it, big bro" Brad said, shrugging himself free and straightening his jacket. He stepped away still grinning at Jojo with his youthful face, grinning casually right into Jojo's stone-hard seriousness. Brad was about to laugh, the air was built up, but all that came out was a choking grunt as he gagged on his own airway. He and Jojo had the exact same response, a powerful lightnings strike-strength twinge of danger blast off in the back of their heads. A synchronized calling. A tremendous power had entered their shared Stand perception. Jojo's eyes went wide and Brad's mouth opened in horror, like he'd been punched, and he broke into a cold sweat.

"OOOOOHHHH!!!" an old man howled across the diner. A withered senior with a thick mustache and thin, wrinkled limbs held his gaping mouth wide open and clutched his heart in pain. He groaned wildly and arched his back in pain as the flow of blood spiked through his body and stopped so suddenly in his chest. A waitress dropped her tray and ran over, taking the man's groaning neck and whispering to him. He only replied with a leaning-forward spray of vomit which he collapsed into face-first. She pulled him out, his face barely wet, and wiped him down. His pulse was gone, his breathing stopped.

"Call an ambulance!" she shouted. "This man's had a heart attack!!!" The diners stood from their seats in horror as the nearest waitress dialed 911 on her cellphone. Jojo looked to Erina, unable to remove his look of horror, and saw that she had fainted back into her seat. His horror increased ten-fold.

* * *

The Frozen Nights slept during the day. Those who were off the gang's regular cycle stayed up and gathered intel as well as patrolled the city for any signs of civil gang revolt or mobilization. Dio slept in late each day and went to sleep immediately after any mission. Rosalisa was never seen sleeping by the regular thugs of the gang, though they were sure that she slept from time to time, often with Dio. Starski was on the day shift and led the thugs known as 'Lightheads' who walked in the sun. Monkey Business came and went as it pleased, sometimes awake at night and other times terrorizing Starski during the day.

Today, as it neared the border of the evening in the later afternoon, the Lightheads and their powerful leader Starski returned from their cruising patrol around their territory to wipe out some juvenile marks on their turf and punish the kids they caught in the act. Through Starski's notoriety in the inner-city as a hard-ass punisher and the raw beating power of the Frozen Night thugs, the patrols they took acted as a secret police that kept the city's crime under well-groomed control. Only the gangs that had sworn allegiance and tribute to Dio had permission to exist anymore within the long reach of his raking hands, and even those gangs outside his direct control were wary of him coming for them with demands of tribute, elimination, dissolution or something possibly worse. Dio had taken control of the city's underworld from above, just as planned, and was able to sleep in perfect peace knowing with absolute certainty how well his kingdom operated in his absence from the throne proper.

Starski exited the car from his regular patrol, wearing all white as usual. White sweats despite the sunny weather, a white tank-top and a white sweatshirt opened in the front with two front pockets. He had a plain baseball cap on his head, which wasn't white but instead light blue with a 'Yankees' logo on the front. He parted a cigarette from his lips and tossed the burnt butt to the ground, stepping on it with his dust-soled white sneakers as he made his way down the dirt slope into the Valley of Shadows, a long-dug trench in the middle of the construction site leading to the thug quarters being built under the foundations of the surrounding buildings.

"Still as effortlessly efficient as always, I see" he said with skeptical analysis.

"What would you do differently?" one of Dio's pale-skinned thugs asked. Starski sighed.

"If I had a choice anymore" he said "I'd go back to my family." He walked down the valley and nodded at the workers who dug the burrows and built the roofs overhead, bordering the ceiling and dirt with slabs of concrete. It was more of a militia barracks being built so as to withstand any invasion. Army quarters for Dio's rightful imperial army of willing foot-soldiers. Starski had a touch of remorse for the men. He saw them pouring all their energy and effort into building these tunnels and concrete-walled hovels without ever thinking of where that energy could otherwise go.

They just built and built, stacked bags and moved blocks and padded the dirt and shoveled more holes, like it was the only life they had worth living. Dio had given that to them, for his own purposes most likely, to grant these men a second or more chance at redemption. Starski watched them working, criminals with petty dreamers, hardened army deserters and rough men of the field, and he smiled. He put on his shades and exited with his report of good intention and progress with the builder troops down below for his own lord and master, Dio.

_I still can't believe this mess_ Starski thought. _It's been a week since and he's still just laying around, like a damn teenager who can't get his way. He's still a punk kid in a lot of ways, I guess. Power or not, he's got a lot to learn. The world ain't a nice place for guys like us. We get killed, hunted, persecuted, arrested, beaten, hurt, fucking slaughtered in the world every day. He can't be the exception to all the rules, I know I'm not. Even so, I guess I work for this punk-ass kid, and he wanted a report for the Valley..._ Starski removed his hat and hung it on a notch outside the headquarters door. Why it bothered anyone within for him to wear a hat was beyond him, but one warning from Dio was enough to get him in order again. At least, in Dio's order. He entered the floor, which had been much improved since Dio had moved in, and now included newly built hallways, walls, doors, floors and actual aesthetics to make it as close to a contractually built apartment complex lobby as possible. The management rooms were Dio's private rooms and the front reception area was Starski's.

Even so, Monkey Business made himself at home wherever he pleased, lounging around and turning the pages in colorful books while watching _ESPN_ programs and sports coverage. Starski passed by the creature in ignorance, not wanting to provoke a fight of any kind from the hostile little freak, and he made his way to Dio's room, hoping to find him there. He knocked with a heavy fist and waited. After so long he knew an answer wouldn't come, so he turned around, took a step and hailed on Rosalisa's door. Still no answer. They were either still sleeping or out. Starski sighed and retired to the common room where a thug was playing pool to relax in his off-shift.

"Hello, Starski" a man playing pool greeted.

"What's up" Starski said as he fell into a reclining chair. He grunted and leaned the chair back, then removed his shades and turned to the man. "You know where Dio is?"

"Sleeping, I believe" he answered as he lined up a shot. "He hasn't left since I've been in here, and I've been in here playing since my last shift ended."

"When was that?" Starski asked.

"**Oh, last night**" the man said. "I'm trying to build up a tolerance to insomnia so I can serve Lord Dio more frequently in his own times. I'm too often tired from a lacking of sleep or an over-dosage of it to be of any good, and add to that my natural lethargy for common work, I need all the help I can get to stay awake and sane. **Even if I must go mad in the process....!**" The man took his shot. It rebound in a perfect angle off the side of the board, slipped between the eight and twelve ball right next to each other and bounced twice more across the corner pocket to hit at the side of the seven. The seven rolled and nudged the five into the opposite corner pocket. "Alright......" he said in a nearly hissing whisper. "Next shot....." Starski just stared at him wide-eyed, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

_Ain't the craziest man I've met, son_ Starski thought. _Keep training, I guess, and you might be..._ Starski suddenly sat up and nearly fell from the recliner as his knees buckled on the lifting leg rest. His eyes were bugging and wide. His mouth fell open and he let out a shaking, hollow gasp as his fingers wrung and clenched in and out of a fist rapidly. A door slammed open in the hall and a pants-clad Dio turned the corner, keeping a hand on the wall to steady himself as his other head painfully clutched his forehead. He wore a manic grin and demonic, reddened eyes. He saw only two men in the room, one of which was gaping at the wall and the other had passed out with a pool-cue jabbed into his eye socket. Dio breathed heavily with a deep, building laugh as he lurched forth to grab Starski by the shoulders.

"Meeting" Dio growled. "Be here...ten minutes!" He retreated with an echoing howl of laughter and ran into the wall. Then he tripped onto the floor and thrust his body up, leaning his weight on his toes and his head as he arched his back as far as it would go. His arms were spread out on the floor as he smiled, a convulsive seizure of indescribable flowing pressure and arcane intensity that signaled to him the coming of his greatest foe, the resurgence of a power that stunned his body and mind to even recall.

_She's here.....

* * *

MUSE and Astella disembarked in a seedy subsection of the inner-city slums, Astella carrying the precious cargo over her shoulder. The ghetto where many a petty thief and criminal made their homes. They walked tall and proud through the streets, enduring the catcalls and hollers of men from their stoops and cars, and even the solicitations from those who drove up to them. MUSE would humor them briefly while Astella leaned on their hood and froze up their engines from outside, killing their cars slowly just to vent her rage. They entered a shoddy, abandoned yet open house somewhere near the edge of town and made their way past the sleeping bums and starved corpses to the cellar. In the basement of the house's foundation MUSE used her Stand to reach behind a pile of railroad ties and flip a switch in the wall. Something loudly clicked on the ground across the room._

"That's our door" she said, signaling to Astella to open it. Astella marched over and felt for a latch or a handle to pry up. In the dark and dusty light she couldn't even see the black-molded floor, much less fell for anything significant. "You're looking wrong" MUSE said. She took her place and glanced around. She could see the dust stagnant in the air, hanging like death all around her, and she could see where it was being moved by a gusting underground force. She used a tentacle from her Stand, coiled and pressed it down into the tiny gap and opened up a great yawning void. The underside of the door was carved in with the most nightmarish images of otherworldly terror Astella had ever seen, and she retreated with her manly lips pursed in horror at the glance of it.

"It's quite warding, isn't it?" MUSE said. "I was quite nearly frightened myself when I first saw it. Come. I don't want to make him wait." Astella nodded. She shouldered the load and descended a stair case behind her leader. They made their way through a cavernous hallway that led into a depraved and destitute dungeon where the skeletons of long-dead tormented hung by rusted iron chains from the wall. Even the rats were either dead or dying, moving slowly across the cold ground without any teeth to gnaw or fur to cover their boiled, blackened skin. Everything sickened Astella, who was markedly less desensitized to this kind of vicious scenery than her compatriot was.

"This place is weirding the shit out of me" Astella said. "What is it?"

"An old colonial skull mine" MUSE said as she swung her empty hips in stride. "It was used to imprison witches and demons the church didn't want to deal with way back in the day. This is the first discovered 'Stand Tomb' where those with unexplainable powers were tortured, tormented and killed outright, just for having the powers that made them superior to the Gods the frightened masses worshiped...." Astella awed at her surroundings in a respectful dread for a moment, then gasped.

"Wait" she said. "The _first_ discovered tomb?"

"That's right" MUSE said. "There's one in Venice as well, as well as many across Europe where superstitions that went against the church were buried rather than just hidden. Old Vatican-sanctioned catacombs were Stand Users were buried alive, sealed in impenetrable coffins, tortured to death and cremated. Even their ashes were sealed in permanent capsules, baked into pottery and dispersed as miraculous artistic marvels throughout the world. Human art at its finest....." Astella stayed silent the rest of the trip. She could tell, from behind even, how upset and emotionally moved MUSE was getting, and it didn't bode well for her.

They finally reached the end of the archaic, antique tunnel and walked into a freshly built hallway of shining white tiles, all polished with a squeaking shine. MUSE opened a sliding door with her Stand and allowed Astella to follow her before closing it. They entered a small room with a table and a chess board ready to play. In the dark, far corner sat the man and the ticking metronome tail of a cat sitting upside down on the ceiling with glowing yellow eyes. The man wore a top hat with a wide brim to hide his face from the lights on the ceiling and a formal purple suede suit with white gloves. He opened his arms with a cheshire smile in the darkness.

"How do, ladies?" he said. He stood from his chair and walked around the table with his arms still stretched out. "Young miss, did you bring it here? How very brash of you! I didn't expect such a thing of a lady who stands herself so highly! May I see it?"

"Take it" MUSE said, signaling Astella to drop and open the case. "Do with it whatever you please. It is a part of me I no longer require."

"How philosophical of you" he said. "I suppose it would make you appear thinner down there, if nothing else, and with the trend in appearing woefully unhealthy these days you'll manage to fit right into the crowds of modern young women."

"To kill them" MUSE said. The man nodded, keeping a good humor all the time. The pedestal rolled out of the case and onto the fine, smooth floor of the room. The man removed the glass container and let hiss out a chilled air of frozen preservation. He took off his glove. The cat on the ceiling meowed loudly and vanished. Astella and MUSE both averted their eyes its way, searching for it, and when they looked back the man had run his hand over an **empty casing stand.** Whatever was there was gone, vanished, even the misty air around it and the cold freeze was compeltely gone. He replaced his glove and turned to MUSE with a smile.

"No going back now" he said. "Welcome to being a monster."

"Good to feel at home" MUSE said. She sat at the table and signaled her confidant to move to an open corner to wait. "Now then, the names?"

"You know a few" the man said as he moved to his chair, a cat hopping from under the table into his lap. "As of now one of those names I promised you is dead, however. I don't know if that's much of a drastic problem to you for going to these lengths to appease me."

"It's fine" she said. "So long as you can give me everything I need, I'll be fine. Now then, the names?"

"Of what?" the man asked, leaning forward. MUSE leaned and summoned her Stand behind her.

"**Everything"** she demanded with a seductive lilting growl. The man grinned and reached to his pocket. Astella sprung to defense.

"GUN!!!!" she roared. The man held the hard edge of a rectangular object to MUSE's chin and grinned at her shock and surprise.

"What do you know" he asked "about Tarot cards?" He unfolded a whole deck of Major Acrana Tarot cards in his hand right under her chin and pulled it away, flashing all the names, numbers and images in perfect order, from 0 to 21, Fool to World, beginning to end. MUSE smiled in relief and sank back into her chair.

"What should I know?" she asked. The man slammed the cards face down and clapped them back together with mad eyes of countless concentric circles.

"**Everything!!!"** he roared. MUSE's meeting began as thus, with infinite mystery and strangeness, only to evolve itself into the most significant gathering of information for all her efforts. The game she had been aching to play was about to begin....


	45. Synchronicity Event Begins

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

In the basement of the dreadful dungeon, MUSE and her accomplice met with the shadow-faced man and his mysterious cat to exchange information. The man had laid the twenty-two cards of his deck onto the table, each laid out in four orderly rows of five each with the Fool at the very top nearest him and the World at the very bottom nearest her apart from the rows. MUSE kept a steady eye on him and tracked his movements. Astella did the same, remaining distrustful of the man and uncertain of his intentions. The gun scare was still sticking with her and she curled her thick lip up into a pout.

"The Tarot Cards" the man began as he waved his hands over the gathered mass of minted-conditioned plastic-laminate cards. "Their origins trace back to Ancient Egypt as a card game among the noble servants and wealthy tied closely to the pharaoh. They migrated their way into Europe in the late 1300s and were quickly adapted into their own stylized card game among the merchants and working classes for fun, but took on a much more mysterious life with the rich nobles of the time. They used old occult methods and gypsie hand tricks to use the cards to predict their fate in a glamorous light. An archaic for of magic to them, as the Tarot Cards hold their own significance to the aspects of all human life."

"I know of Tarot" MUSE said. "I've heard of them in passing, though I've never cared enough to go and study them. What do they have to do with me?"

"With you?" the man said. "With you and all Stand users, the Tarot cards are of extreme importance!" MUSE leaned forward, suddenly captivated. "Each card has its own deep, prophetic meaning that can be derived to anyone's life. They are just vague enough to encompass all the main points of humanity without being so careless as to be broad without meaning. Anyone can see something relevant in one card that also exists in another, all pertaining to their own life and their own thoughts."

"So Tarot Cards" MUSE assumed "have some strange shared origin with Stands? Stands are, of course, the externalized power of a latent human mind that works in correspondence with their personality. Someone desiring a greater control of power in their life would doubtlessly attain a Stand which grants them a degree of control over something, possible over an element or the ability to read minds..."

"So the theory goes" the man said. "These Cards, however, are just as good at predicting the abilities of a Stand as a man's deepest psychological profile." MUSE brightened up and grinned. "There are twenty-two cards in total in the Major Arcana Trump Deck. Each card acts as a numerical trump to the previous, all the way up to The World, number 21, the highest number of the set. It is only beaten by The Fool, number 0, which trumps any and all cards played before it but can be trumped by any and all cards played after. Those two cards are the most potentially dangerous cards to draw for other players, for in the hands of a brilliant player they spell victory in the course of a single graceful play..."

"So how do these tie to Stands?" MUSE asked.

"Have I not been direct enough with you?" the man asked. "**Each card represents a different possible type of Stand that any given human may attain!** The Magician represents control over the elements while the High Priestess represents control over the self, internal powers. That is because of what they represent as traits in humanity. The Magician is the external action, the control of talent. The ability to command fire is both an external representation of power and a skill requiring masterful talent in use. The High Priestess is an introverted card that represents a harnessing of one's subconscious, internalized action and stoic calmness to allow events to pass by. It represents self control and self mediation. That is where a mind-reader or illusionist Stand may come up, where the power of one's internal mind is strengthened through introverted return of power." MUSE was increasingly intruiged. She looked at the cards and deeply began to consider her Stand's power without understanding the meanings of each card. On an amateur, egotistical assumption, she tapped the World card and summoned the tentacled-wrapped hand of her Stand from behind.

"Would this be an accurate draw for my power?" she asked. The man looked at her, and through her, with his eyes full of concentric, shrinking circles down to the shimmering black pools of his pupils.

"I'd say that's a good guess" he said. "The World, in terms of a Stand, is one that comes into play at its fullest possible power. Even if that power happens to be locked away at the moment, the cards that come after it will only prove to strengthen it's stance and unlock its potential. However, you should beware the Fool. Any Stand with the traits of the ultimate Trump can find the way to nullify the powers of the World."

"What are the Fool's traits?" she asked.

"Adaptation" the man explained. "Changeability. The broadness of a Stand's abilities, and its ability to grow and adapt itself to new situations, represents the traits of the ever-wandering, ever growing, free-willed Fool. These Stands are also the most capable, and the most likely, of developing their own sentience and acting apart from their user's will. The World Stands are the opposite. They represent their user on a subconscious level, and act in accordance to their user's will even at the deceit of seeming rebellious, for they are obeying the most basic and internal actions that the user wishes. Those with perfect control over the World have perfect control over their selves as well. And judging by the reaction you have from your Stand, I'd say you know yourself better than anyone else could hope to..."

"That sounds right" MUSE said. "Tell me more. I want to know all that I need to about Stands and their users before I leave here today."

"Why today, my dear?" he asked. "Do you have a meeting more important than this? A previous engagement? A date or something?" MUSE's eyes glimmered at him, like deep, deadly emeralds in a round pool of dark, black oil.

"**I don't want to wait anymore**" she lowed. "**If I'm to start a war, I must be proactive...**" The man grinned a wide grin against the darkness and his eyes lit up in bright, shining yellow. Like a cat's eyes.....

* * *

The hock-wave of MUSE's arrival had provoked a stage-five alarm in the REO Speedwagon para-military research facility. All the Stand users were frozen in fear for a good three minutes and when they awoke they were being driven on a tram through the facility. Even the volunteer users of the day Gerald Reach and Eric Geirtzz were taken away into the deep descent of the facility's darkest corridors and channels. When Gerald finally stirred to his senses he looked around in a half-dreary panic.

"Where are we?" he asked. He crawled up his seat to the passenger and driver in the front. He grabbed the driver's shoulder but was shrugged off sternly.

"Please take your seat, sir" the driver said "or you could incur injury during a sudden stop or sharp turn."

"What's going on?" Gerald asked with a panic of demand. "Where am I? What happened to me?"

"Synchronicity event" REO explained as he gently pulled Gerald back to his seat. Gerald noticed how long he had been out by the change in REO's clothes. His bowler derby hat remained as his most distinguishing article on his head. His shoulder-length curls were tied back in a tight, military knot just under the brim of his hat. All his clothes were dark now, rather than the studious suit under the sterile white lab coat. He wore a long-sleeved top layered with a bullet-proof vest and shoulder-pads wrapped by a belt across his chest. His pants were black and wrapped on his shins with tactical pouches. His shoes had been replaced by thick, military boots for both easy maneuverability and subduing stomping force at close range. He wore fingerless gloves with studded metal knuckles braced underneath the rounded studs with thick leather pads. He looked like some special-ops soldier going into battle.

Then Gerald realized why he was in the same cart.

"Wait, there's a fight!?" Gerald exclaimed. "There's some sort of uproar somewhere? Are you sure? Why am _I_ here then?"

"I was going to bring this up to you privately" REO admitted "and in a more calming manner. I know you're bad with pressure, but we need all the support we can get at the moment. According to our sensors we've detected a massive spike in Stand energy."

"You have sensors?" Gerald asked. "Wait, for how long? How long have you been tracking Stand-user activity in the city limits?"

"We put sensors at the major corners of the city" REO began "last week, when a Stand fight nearly killed me and my friend, Jojo. Remember him?" Gerald nodded. "We need to keep tabs on everything that happens around here from now on. The Speedwagon Foundation got permission to place our sub-planer energy trackers at the busiest traffic intersections as well as in other key points of the city. Those all feed data directly to a satellite relay in orbit with our current headquarters, here, and we receive half-minute delays of information from all the sensors at once. It's like a slow radar ping."

"Isn't that ineffecient?" Gerald asked.

"Not for where we stand right now" REO said. "In fact, we're pretty ahead of the game. We're the only organization in the world that recognizes the existence and study of Stands and Stand-based energy. We're the most progressive mofos on the planet!" REO turned with an expression equally excited and disturbed. "We picked up a humungous energy spike somewhere in the inner city area, the slums, the ghetto, y'know? An incredibly powerful Stand user just decided to appear there, and was recently joined by two others. We aim to move in, secure the location, determine the party's status and act accordingly."

"How?" Gerald asked. REO drew out a pistol, checked the magazine, loaded it back up, cocked the hammer back and then turned the safety on before twirling it and stowing it back in his side-arm sheathe.

"If our negotiator doesn't come out alive" REO said "we'll assume their intentions are malicious and **act accordingly.**"

"With just bullets!?" Gerald exclaimed. The car train came to a sudden halt in front of a large garage of multiple-person transports. REO disembarked with a wave of his arm to follow. The driver and passenger, also soldiers in all black, ran out arming themselves with carefully checked guns. They all ran over into small groups gathered and waiting to board, and all at once they activated a shining blue light attached to their assault weapons. Gerald walked towards them very cautiously, looking around for someone familiar, similar or at the very least sympathetic to his utter confusion.

"Hey kid" a man said. Gerald turned to him and saw a stern-faced soldierly man holding his gun down. "Activate your Stand for me."

"Huh?" Gerald grunted, ever more and more confused.

"We need this batch of recruits" he explained "to see how these lights work. Just activate your Stand for a second. My safety is on so I won't shoot you." That worried Gerald more than comforted him to lower his guard. He very cautiously summoned Bon Jovi and had him stand in front of him with his hand ready to activate his power and the other hand ready on the spacial slider.

"Awesome!" the soldiers cheered.

"That's fucking cool!" another exclaimed. The man disengaged his light and to them, the Stand seemed to disappear.

"Thank you, son" the man said. "Alright, you've seen it plain as day, right? That was a Stand. With these supra-cyan radiation lights, we can see Stands just as a Stand user. We can't hurt Stands themselves, but by aiming around them and keeping track of them, we can at least know where _not_ to shoot!" Gerald stood dumbstruck and wide-eyed with enlightenment at these fantastical technological marvels, all of them brewed up in the Speedwagon facility.

"Gerald!" Eric called. Gerald whipped his head around and started running in the direction where Eric had called. He dodged his way through rushing troops of soldiers dressed all in black and broke through the line of Stand users to meet back up with his friend. The other Stand users were starting to suit themselves up in all black special-ops armor like the other men and women around. The exception within their ranks seemed to be the stoic scar-headed pious man who stayed in his regular starch-white robes on a stretcher. He was conscious and looking around while medics and other people swarmed around him and worked on treating his apparent disrepair of physical condition.

"What the fuck is going on?" Eric asked.

"I'm, still not entirely sure..." Gerald said. "There was an attack, and now everyone's moving out to take care of it....that's all-"

"That's all!?" Eric exclaimed. "So then why the hell are we still here!? Eric shook Gerald until they were forced apart by one of the other Stand users who used only his thick fingers to move them. It was Day, looking between them with half-open lids and raised eyebrows.

"Let's calm down a bit, gentlemen" he said. He turned from Gerald, who was calm and skittish, to Eric who was close to foaming from the mouth in rage. His teeth were grit tight and his eyes were wide with blood-shot anger.

"Calm down!?" Eric growled as he rose a shaking, angry finger. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You wanna recruit us, don't you? You fuckers want to throw us into a war we don't belong in, don't you!?"

"Of course not" REO said, parting the group with an assault rifle in his arms and a camera-shaped side-arm sheathed in its sling at his hip. "I'd like to hear that I can count on you guys when we need your talents in the future, but I know how much of a long shot that guarantee is right now under these circumstances. We're going top-side and exiting into the streets via a secret passage in the inner city. We'll let you out and give you some cab fare to get back to the downtown district and campus. Just bare with us for a second, alright?"

"No" Gerald said. "No!" he shouted. "I'm not...letting this happen again! I....I'll go with you!" REO looked him over. There was no doubt at all in his face or posture. He was totally serious about his request for service. He even eyed down the guns as if his genius eyes were trying to discern exactly how to work them the second they would hit his hands.

"Are you fucked!?" Eric shouted, pushing Gerald. Gerald drew his Stand and pushed back, elongating the arm upon contact to throw Eric across the length of open ground, right in front of a marching battalion of troops and into a wall. "Gah....fuck....???" The arm of Bon Jovi retreated back into Gerald's body and he flexed his arm up with a shaking face.

"Don't push me, Eric" he growled. Eric just stared back in utter confusion.

".........alright" he said. He got up and brushed himself off, looking around at the eyes that saw him recover flawlessly from impacting solid, reinforced concrete walling. "You guys won't need me, I bet so.....Leave it to Gerald."

"Welcome to the force" Day said with a smile. Gerald shyly nodded and turned to REO. He was giving him a beaming smile. He turned to a man with face-paint urban camouflage that was dispensing and checking guns.

"Hey!" REO called. "This kid needs gear!" Gerald smiled. For once he was able to assert himself, force his opinion, and be determined and confident. He had never felt the accomplished feeling that he had when the moment was worn. The greatness of standing up straight on his own for once. Gerald smiled. He felt a great weight on his back suddenly shatter and he slouched no longer. He stood tall, flipped his hair with a throw of his head and his entire perpetually worried expression changed. He was filled with battle will, and his Stand reflected with a tensing of its ethereal muscles and an unconscious summoning...

* * *

A man was leaning against a motorcycle, smoking a cigarette, just outside a gas station at the block around the corner of the diner where Jojo had been. Jojo was currently running around in an utter panic, assessing his environment, using his superior wit to find some means of transport. That's when he saw the man with the motorcycle.

"Sir!" Jojo shouted, catching the biker's attention fro macross the street. Jojo dashed across the road, barely avoiding a fast-moving ambulance, and stopped in front of the man's vehicle. "Sir, I'm sorry, but there's been a horrible accident just around the corner! Can you lend me your motorcycle?"

"Huh!?" The man exclaimed. "Why the fuck should-" before he could finish, Jojo stomped over the bike and grabbed him by his collar. The man's feet were dangling a moment later. Jojo's hair seemed to move on its own, as if in a timid breeze that the man failed to feel. "Wh-what happened?" he kindly asked, only able to blink his eyes in confusion.

"Someone could die" Jojo said in all seriousness, a glowing aura around him. He placed the man calmly back on the ground and stepped back. "I'm sorry, but it's urgent. A friend of mine needs to get to the hospital ASAP and everyone else in the diner has already collapsed. They think the food was poisoned!"

"Seriously!?" the man said.

"They think it's a terrorist attack!" Jojo said. The man jumbled his key's from his pocket and tossed them to Jojo.

"I'll be waiting here" the man said. "Just bring it back, alright? Get your friend to the hospital, take care of them, and get back here, alright!?"

"Got it" Jojo said. He started the bike up and spun it out into the street, aiming directly for the diner just around the corner. "Thank you very much. I'll be back as soon as I can." Jojo sped off, through traffic, and screeched to a halt in front of the diner where Brad was waiting with a half-conscious Erina held over his shoulder. He carefully laid Erina against Jojo's back and made sure she was as secure as possible on the bike. A police officer escorting civilians into the ambulance and the other vehicles that were emergency-route bound approached the bike and looked over the hazardous conditions.

"Take slow turns" the man said to Jojo "and make sure she gets where she's going. We can't have the scandal of the Andrew Shipping Co heiress being subject to a terrorist poisoning attack." Jojo nodded and faced forward with a pale and sweaty complexion. "Are you sure you're alright to drive this thing son?" he asked.

"Yes, sir" Jojo said. He looked down at the console. _I was lucky to know how to accelerate and brake. I have no idea what I'm doing! Damn it! _"The hospital is only a few blocks away, but this should make getting there easier. Thank you, again, for understanding."

"Of course" he said. Brad took the back-most seat and was promptly pushed off by the cop. "I think not! Lenience is something that I can permit to a man like him, but who the hell are you!?" Brad lowered the brim of his hand and grinned.

"It was worth a try" he said. Brad kicked his foot out and unsheathed two roller-blade wheels from within the shoe's rubber sole and hopped onto them to kick the other shoe out. On four wheels he leaned back and began speeding down the backed-up, police-controlled street. The policeman looked after him as he ran away and missed Jojo peel out and speed down the sidewalk.

"I have a feeling I just did something wrong...." he thought aloud. Jojo raced down the sidewalk, came out onto the backed-up street and began meandering between the cars in his way until he finally hit a straightaway without cars. That's when Brad caught up to him and grabbed the metal railing seat at the very rear of the vehicle.

"That was a close one, Cagney!" he shouted. Jojo just nodded. "I'll make sure she doesn't fall!"

"What about your Stand!?" Jojo called.

"My Stand?" Brad said, barely hearing him over the close roar of the motorcycle's loud engine and muffled that pumped black smoke right through his parted legs. "I haven't used it yet today. I hitched a ride before I caught up with you, so I'm good to go for anything!"

"Great" Jojo said. "If something bad happens make sure to protect Erina. I can endure a few road-burns or broken bones so long as my lungs aren't damaged."

"So where are we taking her?" Brad asked. He repeated when he saw Jojo didn't respond, much louder to clear the noise of the motorcycle engine.

"A friend" Jojo said. "This wasn't any kind of poisoning like we reported....You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah" Brad agreed. "Something's up with Stand users. You think she might be on, eh?"

"She's at least sensitive" Jojo said. They came to a stop at an intersection and pulled the bike onto the sidewalk. Erina was still drifting to and from consciousness, mumbling with a blurry understanding of where she was. She mostly reached out to grab something when she was forced to stand on her own and stumbled as if drunk. Jojo kept her up and held her close by. Brad turned off the engine and tossed the keys in his hand. "I need to figure out where to go from here....he always comes to me from God knows where."

"Kind of a half-assed plan, eh?" Brad said. Jojo glared at him. "_Quoi?_ Just being observant..." Brad caught the keys one last time and was struck with what looked like a brilliant revelation. "Observant....clairvoyant....Jojo! I think I know who can help!"

"You do?" Jojo asked. With all seriousness and nothing but helpful intentions, Brad pointed down the road to a psychic parlor built between a tattoo parlor and a bar and underneath a sleazy two-room apartment. Jojo curled his lip and glared dejectively at Brad. Brad withdrew his suggestion with a scoff and took the motorcycle by the handlebars.

"We should keep moving, at least" he said. "The cops could consider this kidnapping."

"Right" Jojo said. He looked at his hand apart from Erina's body and concentrated on it. As Brad wheeled the motorcycle down the empty sidewalk that led into the unknown ventures of the ghetto, Jojo could feel a darker chill hanging in the air. He shook his fist with a tight grip and summoned up a warm, sunny glow to his skin without seeing the grim, dark echo of shadows that accompanied the rise of The World from his body. He drew it back on surprise when he heard the motorcycle bump and shake its metal parts over a large crack in the street.

"Sorry" Brad said. Jojo nodded and tried to pick up the pace without jostling Erina who walked in a blind stagger next to him. He was worried.

_I hope sensitivity is all you have_ he thought as he looked at her calm, peaceful mumbling face. _This crazy world isn't a place for a sweet, fragile girl like you...._


	46. War Movements

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

In the darkness red eyes glared. A fevered rush of excitement filled the dying air. As the sun began a dusk descent the hearts of black-souled men awoke and their bodies stirred to the demonic rhythm of their collected id. Organized creatures, grabbing rifles from a uniform wall under a crumbling ceiling of poor wood support, rushing out in columns like Roman soldiers, standing to the empty presence of a leader not yet ready.

His lieutenants were there. A man with dark skin, a jaded glare, a furrow of his brow and a frown of his lips. Starski with the Stand Run DMC, wearing white sweats, sneakers and a black wife-beater. Under a curled arm he held a helmet of official commission to the US Airforce. How it was in his possession was a tale of thievery best left unsaid. He stood at the left of the doorway and on his shoulder was perched, in a Buddhist seat with a tiny rolled blunt cigarette in its mouth, Monkey Business with its Stand DAGON held within.

To the opposite side of the door stood Rosalisa, a vision of beauty and foreboding, in her deadliest dress. Frills of lace hid razor blades hung by strong iron wires that ran all around the bell-shape of her Gothic attire. It was only three rows of such long, barely a miniskirt the way it puffed out. Along her black stockings were throwing knives easily visible and latched by elastic to be sliced out carelessly in a sudden battle. Her heels were lined under the leather combat-boot exterior with steel, giving them a debilitating addition to kicking power. Her top was a corset studded along her spine with metal studs and layered over her breasts with a long-sleeved underarmor shirt. Her hair was done in the shape of a rose folding and curling over itself, and for the occasion, Rosalisa had taken rosy-red highlights to the folds of her flowery hair that made the black shine even brighter.

"This is the time" said the devil "where our power shall be shown in its fullest force!" In his room of darkness, the demon brought up his gear. Loose pants tightened at his ankles, his knees and his waist with belts, wherein the pockets he carried two sheathed knives. Hard, custom shaped boots with a spiked, curled-up toe of each foot, an extremity weapon for only extremist cases of disarmament. "This night will be stolen by us!" On his wide, muscular back he equipped a sleeveless underarmor tank that stretched to his flexing arms. "We shall take our cold, deathly grip to the virgin throat of the world, the darkness...." His finishing piece. A jacket, cut low, with belts at the wrists and sheathes for knives sewn in its interior folds. He brought his hands to his forehead and combed back his bangs in a mad lean forward, letting his red eyes shine through the darkness. **"...we shall freeze the night into a cold, white corpse!!!"**

Into the light he stepped, radiant in his power. His clothes were all black, terrible and black, but the belts that tied his clothes so close to his body were red. His darling blue eyes were sharpened with a cut-throat angle of evil and his grin was extended to flash his human fangs in an inhuman, primal way. His shadow twitched beneath him as he spread his arms to the open sky, smiling above it, and let stretch the devilish wings of his demon Stand all wrapped in tight-skinned leather black. The wings blew an arcane gust into the legion standing before him, yet no one flinched. Their teeth were grit behind the skull-faced masks and rags, and beneath their tight scowls of power and threat, and in their wide, mad grins hidden by riot-masks, all tense and prepared for battle.

"**We, the Frozen Nights, shall take this night and destroy all who oppose it!!!**" Dio's proclamation went soaring to the sky. His men cheered for their menacing, benevolent dictator, and for the kill at hand. They could feel the blood running hot through their bodies, like living machines just revved and primed for their function, all under the thumb of order of the mighty, charismatic Dio Brando. Dio let his arms fall back down and lowered his head with an obvious grin at the border of the shadows his bangs cast over his eyes.

"Nice gang" Starski said as he moved to equip his helmet. "I sure wish _I_ had one like it." Dio glared at him. He could see Starski intercept it, as he glanced to Dio with a smug grin before hiding his face, and set his eyes back again.

"Where shall we go, Lord Dio?" Rosalisa asked, ready with a thick, newly-stolen notebook. 150 leaf, college rule. Aside from that, he could see, bulging in hiding at either shoulder, was a smaller pocket-sized note book for her to use. He lowered his snarling, toothy smile to a regular grin, grasped his hips with his hands and leaned back with his feet together. His Stand vanished into him again.

"That isn't for me to decide" Dio said. "It is fate that shall guide us. Perverse, twisted, whorish fate will find me my monster to kill!"

"How will we find fate?" Starski asked.

"That's your job, isn't it?" Dio said. "Take MB with you, keep him safe, and find a way to find the bitch. Once you do I shall await your call." Dio, from the shadow of his own arm, tossed to Starski a cellphone. Starski caught it with caution, as any object in Dio Brando's grasp is lethal at points, and he opened it. It was set to dial to a number that, to Starski, seemed more suspicious than plausible. Dio held up his phone, which had exposed wires running from the side into the back, and Starski saw through the visor of his helmet that his phone was set to trace any incoming call. "Simply hit send and we will find the origin of the beacon. By no means are you to stay in the same spot for too long. If you are caught in a chase, unless it is unrelated to our true target, keep the phone safe but do not use it. Every send of that phone to this number will reset the beacon, and thus reset our current destination, and I don't want to have to do too much guessing when it comes to this paramount matter."

"Got it" Starski said as he adjusted his head. "Find the bitch, set the phone, run away. Any trouble, let the monkey handle it."

"Look out for him, MB" Dio said as the monkey-lizard climbed onto Starski's neck, discarding its cigarette to the ground. "I don't need two men dead on duty before the fight even begins." Starski nodded. He felt proud. It was as if, in Dio's own way, his subjugative words were caring and of a concerned leader.

_Maybe he's good enough for this afterall_ Starski thought. MB locked itself in, assuring its grip was tight and that Starski's thick neck could withstand its own animal pressure, and Starski moved out. He ran into a clearing, far enough from the men that his launch wouldn't cause too great of a jarring alarm, and his Stand activated. With an explosive release of air Starski was airborne, taking in air with the scream of a jet and expelling it out through the winding, super-efficient turbines the Stand had for arms and legs. Starski was flying with the phenomenal speed of a jet taking off until he landed with a sprint onto the roof of a nearby high-rise ghetto apartment. He was miles from uptown, right in the middle of downtown, and the sun was against even the shortest of buildings now, sinking into the low rolling hills of the far horizon.

_He is a good man_ Dio thought. _It would be a shame to have him die so early..._ "Now, we must move on our own" Dio declared. "As he searched from the sky, we shall flood this ground and take the souls of all in her employ by our own hands! We are the sole, superior power of this rancid city of carnage and blood! _WE_ are the gods of this disgraced heaven! **We are SUPREME! We shall come as a deluge and DESTROY ALL AGAINST US!!!**"

His response was more cheering. Arms pumping. Guns firing blindly to the sky. The satisfaction was instant. Dio felt the surge of power over his people blast into his blood and cause all his extremities to burn with anticipation. His grin was large, a toothy animal smile, and his eyes were wide with shrunken pupils and deeply furrowed brows. His monstrous appearance was compiled, a reviled evil which these demons in black cheered in admiration. The face of a devil, the face of a God. The power of Dio Brando sank the sun from the sky....

* * *

Jojo and Brad continued on with the swagger-stunned Erina and the borrowed motorcycle into a seedy, dark-alley corner of the luckless town end. Men in matching rags and color patterns scurried away from their procession only to appear some few alleys further down the same road or at a corner across a street where all the cars were parked. Obviously, this was not an ideal sort of circumstance for either man to be in. Jojo, with his uncontrollable Stand, was incapable of quietly or safely dispensing of any attack, whereas Brad's guard of the motorcycle would lessen the more he fought in his distinct way.

In either case of defense, one would be left to guard everything with nothing but the faith in the other, and even in small numbers Jojo could see the danger. He sighed and hurried on, walking past Brad with Erina now held in both his arms, limp in his hands.

"Let's hurry" he said.

"Relax" Brad said.

"This isn't the place to relax" Jojo said. He saw Brad's face and picked up on the sternness of his suggestion.

"I know" Brad said, "but aside from this motorcycle and the obviously blacked-out cute girl in your arms, we have nothing to be tense or upset about being stolen. We need to be passive about things here. I know. Trust me, if you act like things don't matter, people will leave you alone, because they'll either assume they're hot, dangerous, broken or that you can kill them faster then they can steal them..." Jojo nodded. He obviously understood the logic, even if he didn't follow through with it, and replied to each snarling glare with a heated shot of rage. To each scowl he delivered the glaring men in nameless leagues went into the shadows, only to reemerge somewhere else.

"Stay loose" Brad said as he rolled his shoulders. "Relax. I've got us covered in case of an emergency."

"I'd not use your Stand" Jojo warned. "You said yourself, you have a definite limit as far as full-power goes. Just focus on going forward, focus on the bike. It isn't mine."

"When do you need to bring this back, anyway?" Brad asked.

"As soon as I can" Jojo answered. "I just told him I needed it to get Erina to the hospital and he gave it to me."

"No one says no to you, do they?" Brad said. "You probably just blinked at him and knocked him over, eh?"

"These muscles aren't all for fighting" Jojo said, looking at Erina in his arms. "I only fight to defend, to protect myself and others. Otherwise, I wouldn't look half this trained."

"You look like a bodybuilder" Brad said. "Were you born that way?"

"Well, well" a snide and crooked voice called. A man leaned his way around the corner of a building and his troop of rag-faced men came out from the wall to block the sidewalk path. "What have we? Taking a walk, bitches?" The men behind him laughed as he pushed off form the wall. He was a short man, a white man, wearing plain street clothes and a leather Reich-era cap with an iron cross on its front. He sized Jojo up with a skeptical pouting and backed away with a slow, sluggish laughter. "Looks like you work out, man. You gay?" His confidants snickered.

"Get outta here, _merde_" Brad cursed. "We're going somewhere, we don't have time for you _chienne_ barking at us!"

"What language is that?" the head man said. He walked over and pressed his dirty fingers into Brad's cheeks, forcing his lips to purse out as he shook him around. "Speak English, you faggot freak!" He pushed at Brad, hoping to throw him right to the ground. Brad didn't move. His hands were braced by the weight of the motorcycle. In defense, Brad leaned back, carrying the force of the man's weak push, and kicked up his leg to slam his shin right between the man's legs. His face tensed up horribly with pain.

"I'm a more dexterous fighter than you credit me for, Jojo" Brad said. He swung his way back up onto the motorcycle and landed with both hands still on the handlebars on the opposite side as the man fell to the ground holding his groin and groaning. "After all, I'm a _parkour _master!"

"You bitch!" a man shouted. He lurched in, ready to throw a punch, but advanced from too far. Brad grabbed the left handle with his right hand and spun his body across the front of the bike, kicking with his screw-spinning legs at the man's face. The man was thrown off of his track with a quick leg to the face and staggered Jojo's way. Without missing a beat Jojo leaned to the side and delivered a high kick without disturbing Erina's body in his arms. The other men saw the force of the attack, saw the sweat that beaded from the brief rush in fly off as a mist, and shied away in fear. Jojo lowered his leg with a calm, controlled breath out.

_And I'm a Sun Ripple Master_ Jojo thought. _Between us, fending off a few weak thugs like this, it's almost an insult to our power!_ As Brad's hands moved over his head, crossing his chest to grab the handles, he pushed himself up and spun around. Then, with a quick and mighty tug on the static bars, he spun around again and fell down onto the seat. Something shook and the seat suddenly fell. A screw was loosened to the point of popping out. The first, Reich-hatted man rose his head from the ground just as the bolt popped from its spring and was bruised by the flying metal right in his temple. In shock, he fell over and fainted at the pain.

"Whoops" Brad exclaimed. Jojo's jaw dropped and his eyebrows went up. Brad turned to him with an earnest blush and a nervous, childish grin. "Sorry. I guess....if it was that loose he must not have needed it, right?"

"Wha-?" Jojo began. The roar of heavy engines rounded the corner and the screeching of tire treads echoed the air. A military vehicle, heavily armored and painted all black with the letters of white 'REO' brightly emblazoned on the side, stopped on sight of Jojo and Brad. It had at least two feet off the ground for the thick tires and was weighed down by an inactive gun turret and a heavy trap door in the back for those within to file from. That door fell open with a loud thud and rattle against the ground, denting a manhole cover, and from within a troop of powerfully armed, black-clad men moved out. The gang thugs dispersed instantly, though one was caught and smashed in the face with the butt of a rifle gun wielded by a thick-bodied man. That man wore a fabric mask all in black and a bowler derby, obviously telling Jojo who he face at the moment.

"REO?" Jojo said. His friend tugged down his mask and tipped his derby, greeting Jojo with a simple, militant nod. "What's going on? What is all this!?"

"We're moving out" REO said. "We've gotten a confirmed reading on a massive Stand energy spike coming from this sector of the city. We're trying to find out what it is and why it's here, then determine if it's a hostile reading or not."

"SIR!" a black-clad trooper shouted. "We've got another spike! It's a lot smaller, nearby! It's following the route we took to get here!"

"Someone's after us, eh?" REO said. "That's some A-grade bullshit, I think!" REO turned to Brad and the motorcycle, eying down the motorcycle, then finally noticed Erina in Jojo's arms. He slung his weapon onto his back and offered his arms. "She's in shock, isn't she?" Jojo handed her over.

"She passed out when Brad and I got a simultaneous awareness" Jojo explained. "It's happened all over the city already, hasn't it?"

"Synchronicity event" REO said. He handed Erina to the man that reported to him. "She's in Stand shock. Get some lights and an IV on her, STAT!"

"Yes sir!" the man exclaimed.

"Wow" Jojo said. "I'm impressed, REO. You've got your own army here, don't you?" REO placed a trusting hand to Jojo's shoulder, leading their eyes to meet. There was a cold, serious demeanor around REO that Jojo had never directly seen before.

"We could be at the precipice of a tragedy" REO said in all total seriousness. "This new, powerful Stand user could easily tip the balance of order and chaos if they aren't sided properly. Jojo, I know you aren't as apt as using a Stand as the rest of us are, but you're an invaluable member of this task force-no, you're my brother. You're my family! Even if I can never be a Joestar, I consider you as much of a Speedwagon as I do myself and my father! We'll take care of Erina from here, bu will you help us?" Jojo took REO's hand from his shoulder and smiled.

* * *

Jojo revved the motorcycle's handle. The gas was still near its peak in the cycle's tank. A nigh-indestructible military-grade helmet was given to him to wear and a blue-light equipped semi-automatic rifle was holstered onto his back for extra safety. Erina was taken into an ambulance van illuminated in the Stand-revealing supra-cyan radiation and placed on a stretcher to keep her vitals up as her body and mind experienced a synchronized shock from the sudden pulsing of her hidden powers. Brad was being equipped in the APT (Active Personnel Transport) for battle with a slug-loaded sniper rifle to charge his Stand with energy when the time came. REO connected Jojo's helmet with his own personal communication device and sat shotgun to the most heavily armored vehicle in the fleet.

"I'll guide you through your helmet's position" REO said. "You can go as far ahead of us as you want and I can keep guiding you to the minor reactive point."

"Got it" Jojo answered. Jojo peeled off down the street just as the military caravan got rolling in the same direction. "Now, if you could, explain this 'synchronicity event' to me."

"Of course" REO said. "First, take a left." Jojo slowed down and took a sharp left into a row of houses stretching into a destitute suburbia, the last haven for the poor families pushed from the inner city by crime, taxes and discrimination to a life saturated in dashed hopes and villainous dealings in the dark nights. Jojo looked around at the homes. They were all dark, and those that weren't quickly darkened as he rolled past them.

"Stand energy is a very strange thing" REO began. "We still barely understand it, given what resources we have at our disposal. Through the efforts of my own funding for scientific, empirical studying and technological advancements in research equipment, we have found ways to measure the approximate levels of Stand energy, or 'Ghost Ripple Frequency', for anyone in the world. Through active brain-wave stimulation, we can even stimulate and eventually release that energy, awakening Sleeper Stands or high-potential individuals to pure Stands of their own."

"Recently" REO continued as his caravan rounded the same corner Jojo had passed into, "we've come to the conclusion, through careful testing, that Stand users in close proximity, are somehow telepathically linked. The fluctuations of one Stand user's energy are felt throughout the Stand community. Such as, when you first attained your Stand, however accidental it may have been, we recorded many in-house subjects with Sleeper Stand powers suddenly convulsing with Stand sickness, much like you naturally experienced when the energy became prevalent to you, and soon thereafter their Stands emerged as complete and controlled entities."

"That's amazing" Jojo said.

"Take a right" REO instructed "then the second left. The house should be the last on the block."

"Got it" Jojo confirmed. "So, this current event, it's city-wide. What do you make of that?"

"The significance of the radius of effect" REO continued "can be directly related to the effecting user's Stand energy. Yours is high, so the effects of yours reached far and wide to some degree. The resurgence of multiple powerful Stand-users in the immediate area tells us that their power, to effect even the lesser-potential people to this degree, is insurmountable."

"So what am I dealing with" Jojo asked "by going after this single, less potentially dangerous threat?"

"Who knows how far they've already moved since we caught their first reading?" REO said. "This could be an agent, hiding out and waiting for a movement. With users this powerful we need to move cautiously. Take no risks." Jojo's hands gripped the handles tight. His own power, one he could not consciously control, one that resonated and acted on a purely evil and destructive will from deep within the uncontrollable unconscious of Jojo's mind, was such a power that required these means to suppress. His power was an absolute destructive force, and he knew now what level of threat it carried. The threat of warfare, of collapsed ego, of total animistic regression. He had seen it time and time again: that power corrupts and destroys the best intentions of men. In the end, he was simply a man, subject to a power greater than himself, and was forced to hide from it at all possible recourse.

That's when he felt the pangs of The World as it rose itself from the deep, dark sea of his darkest mind, resonating with its own flex of grip just beyond Jojo's own hand, forcing him to stop and pant in the stuffy helmet.

"You alright?" REO asked.

"A little" Jojo replied.

"Don't treat them as an enemy" REO said, "but respond to any hostility with a forceful self-defense. If this person is just a prevailing Stand user, we want them on our side as early as possible."

"Of course" Jojo agreed. He removed the helmet and pulled his bike to the curb. He took the key, pocketed it and locked the bike down with a wheel-boot found in the compartment under the seat.

"If there's an emergency" REO continued as Jojo pulled the earpiece and equipped it to his ear, "we'll radio you. We'll also send out a searchlight for the rest of our patrol to gather on in the worst case scenario, and we'll expect you to be done with enough time to assist us somehow, understood?"

"Uh, yeah" Jojo replied, having heard enough to know that REO was talking about an emergency, though he missed that first part. "Roger, I mean."

"Stay focused" REO encouraged. "And Jojo, keep safe."

"Of course" Jojo said. "Same to you, REO. Good luck." Jojo took a look at the common single-level slum house and sighed. He could hear the loud roving of military vehicles from two blocks away and saw the curious lights flashing in the windows. The caravan was rolling even further through the suburbs, on their way straight out, it seemed, to the dilapidated outer city limits. Jojo sighed and stepped forward for the porch of the house, calmly placing his hand on the door, unaware of what waited for him on the other side. Though he hesitated, the door was forcibly unlocked and Jojo jerked his head down to the beige glow of The World's braced wrist drawing from from out of the door. It had unlocked the door for him.

_It wants me to go_ he thought. _That can't be good. Something is waiting for me, it has to be a trap....but if it is, then I'd better spring it for the sake of someone else. If this power is going to take me, it's going to take me swinging!_ Jojo entered the house, not making himself known.

A pair of glazed, red eyes glared into the darkness and a hound's growling mouth opened with rows of masticating teeth clenched and fit perfectly together just beyond Jojo's sight....

* * *

As the military procession passed through the city, a man watched from the heights of a downtown apartment complex. The winds that bustled around him were unnatural and of arcane origin. He looked down at the device in his hand and contemplated pressing it, then turned his helmeted head to his back.

"What do you say, buddy?" Starski asked. MB summoned his godly visage DAGON and breathed from its mouth a bubble. That bubble drifted in front of Starski, shined for but a second and popped with a psychic snap. Starski backed away from it and felt MB lightly tapping at the back of his helmet, a silent signal for 'nothing' they had arranged. "Damn. There must be _something _going on down there if all these trucks and shit are moving out. It's not just a routine patrol or any extra ambulance aid, it's definitely an organized military movement. They're going somewhere, towards something, and I gave a feeling that it's the same thing we're after." MB screeched in impatience.

"Up yours, punk!" Starski shouted. "I'm captain here! You're the radar! Start detecting some smart shit before I start doing barrel-rolls!" Starski summoned his Stand, activated the turbines and jumped from the twelve-story roof. The gathered air propelled him forward like a rocket and eventually evened his flight to soar directly over the myriad flat rooftops and through the thin alleys that wound and netted the elegant city-scape into a collected, organized concrete and steel jungle. His jet-flight went unseen, but not unheard, by many, and those who saw him were quick to dismiss the truth.

One set of eyes watched with a burning intensity as Starski ducked and weaved his way through the uptown skyscrapers and into the skies high over the downtown traffic jams, analyzing him from afar. Judging him ruthlessly. The eyes parted from their binoculars and were narrowed into white, glaring, angular curves. Shining through holes in a hard-leather mask. From afar, a man clad in an evil air observed the flight of Starski and stomped through a room decorated with bodies. One groaned and jerked the man's attention. An instant later, accompanied by a sick splatter of organs falling from the membranous sack of a man's flesh, the groaning stopped and a life was ended.

A door was slammed. Stairs were ascended. Yet another door was kicked down. A man in a mask stood in the cool evening air. His hair was long and woven together into thick, greasy tentacle strands, held back behind a raw, blackened leather mask. The face was torn near the mouth into a jagged, poorly stitched slit and the eyes were round enough so that only the glaring of the villain's true eyes were seen. He wore no shirt, his pale white skin and muscles against the stark, city air, but his pants were layered wit tattered leather aprons plenty, all stained with blood, and boots crusted with long-dried blood and guts.

He stomped the ground. His mouth fell open and parted the stitches across his mouth slit. He roared, flexing all his energy and sending a beacon of ghostly ripples into the air.

_**HHRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!**_ The war was begun....


	47. Dynamic Forces

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo entered the house to silence and darkness. He looked around for a quick moment and breathed in deeply, gathering his strength and activating his ripple. His skin began to glow faintly. He heard a quiet smacking of lips in the darkness. His senses all told him that danger was lurking, and upon hearing the floor creak he turned with a start to defend himself. He heard the bark of a dog, then the lights went on. The force around him vanished and he suddenly stared down the face of a grizzled man, forced from the world, with an armed shotgun.

"!?" the man grunted. "Who're you? You're not with them?"

"With who?" Jojo asked. "Anyway, who are you? What's your affiliation?" The man tensed up with fury.

"SHIT!" he shouted "You _are_ with them! Die, fucker!" He fired the shotgun. A split-moment later he was being punched in the face and thrown onto a couch against the wall. The pellets of the gun had blasted holes in the thin house wall. Jojo, once down from his heat of rage, looked at his fist and the man it connected with in a sudden and worried revelation.

_What!?_ He wondered. _How...did that happen? Just a second ago...no, less than that..._

"Asshole!" the man growled as he rubbed his dented cheek. "I don't know how you moved that fast. Maybe...teleportation!?"

"I don't have any power" Jojo said. "Besides, you attacked me first! What's your problem, brandishing a shotgun to whoever walks through your door!" With an accusing finger pointing from his strong, firm, manly hand, he roared in judgment at him "What kind of life do you lead!?" The man smirked and slid up onto his comfy, cushioned couch and rested his gun on his lap.

"You aren't one of them, are you?" the man said. "Nah, you seem like a good kid. You're alright, in fact. Sorry I snapped. Take a seat." Jojo lowered his finger and slowly sat back down on a broken coffee table leaned up against a pile of trash on the side of the wall. Jojo took a quick look over his apparently resolved foe and memorized his face. He had an unshaven few weeks worth of stubble built up, a bawdy brown, curly gruff. His jaw was solid and broad. His eyes were like dulled blades, like those of a soldier who'd been too long away from the battlefield. His hair was cleanly cut into a flat-top, short side Army cut. He was a military man, obviously, one fallen from former position into an unwell life in such a scrupulous place.

"My name is Jonathan Joestar" Jojo said to relieve the palpable tension. "I'd like to know who you are, and who you think may be out to kill you."

"Sure thing, Joey" the man said. "They call me **the Red Wolf.** I'm an ex-Marine, fled from the service when I found a better place to use my skills as a hardened soldier. Basically, I took from them an expert training and now I use it for my own use, living a life free from the oppression of a bureaucracy-led military. For safety purposes, as you look like a good law-abiding kid, I can't tell you my real name."

"I understand" Jojo said. "Who's after you?"

"I'm hunted by most of the city's gangs" Red admitted. "The Electro-Orgy has given me up for dead, but the Syndicate of Stellar Sin is smarter than that. They send a hitman every few weeks to try and deal with me. This is the third house I've lived in since they started hunting me....then, there's those bastards, **the Frozen Nights!**"

"What!?" Jojo exclaimed. "You've fought with them!?"

"They're the toughest guys" Red said "I haven't dealt with yet. I know if they wanted me dead I'd more than likely be dead before I even had the means to fight them....but now, I think I'm ready for just about anything..." Red relaxed a bit more and slouched himself back into his sofa. He held his gun over his shoulder, pointed up and safely away from Jojo. "How do you know them, kid? You in some up-and-coming gang like I was?"

"No" Jojo said, "however, I do know their leader. I've fought with him before. We've known each other...for a damn long time."

"That so?" Red said. "You must be his rival, or something, right?"

"....it seems I am" Jojo admitted. "I can't rightly say anything for him, at least nothing good, only that you're right. He's as tenacious in his ambitions as he is merciless in clearing his path. If someone is standing in his way he'll go to every extent to bury them, even by hand if he has to. He's that kind of man."

"If he joined the army" Red said "I'm sure he'd be a bang-up soldier."

"If he joined the army" Jojo declared "it'd just be to get his hands on a gun and kill his way to the top. That's all he does, build stairs out of dead and broken bodies to climb!"

"But at least he doesn't know I'm still alive" Red said "and even if that, he doesn't consider me a threat anymore. Either or would give me peace. So, kid, why're you here? If you're not after my life yet you came up to a house that looked abandoned even from outside, what could you be after?" Jojo felt a presence in the air that drew his attention away for but a second. Red set his gun on the small end table at his side, on the end of the couch, and leaned in, still keeping a hand on the oak-panel pattern of the gun's butt.

"Sir" Jojo began respectfully, "do you have...**a Stand?**" Red's eyes sprung up with excitement. Jojo could see the air parting and forming around him, a negative space of ghostly resonance, an extension of his soul growing out and freely into the air. At his side there stood a beastly Stand as tall as a tiger on all four of its paws, but with the body and appearance as an armored Doberman. It's armor was rust-red and its fur was the color of blood. It crouched down with a slide of its feet across the carpet and opened its wet, toothy maw at Jojo, emitting a real growl and glaring out of rage-white eyes.

"This is my Stand" Red said. "**Blood Hound Gang!**" The Stand reeled its head back with its thick, powerful neck and howled a real, loud, booming howl into the house. Jojo was struck with awe at its powerful voice. He leaned back and nearly fell off his feeble seat as the Stand lowered its head and began to pant. "It has all the power you think it has. It's pounces, bites, and can run with the speed of a car! It acts like a boomerang. No matter where I send it, how far away or for how long, it always returns through the back of the house and comes to me, just like a loyal guard dog. And, being a dog, it gives me an incredibly keen sense of smell and hearing!"

"That's all amazing" Jojo said. "There must be some drawback to wielding all that power, though."

"Well" Red said, "I haven't used it to fight with yet, you see. It's a guard dog, not exactly an assault dog. I'm not entirely willing to go looking for a fight to test it in, either. When I need to figure out what it can do, I'll know the proper time."

"I see" Jojo said. "This must be why REO's sensors picked you up so suddenly. Tell me, did you experienced anything odd, any kind of physical ailment or shock earlier today?"

"I got kinda anxious" Red said "in the afternoon, an hour or two ago. I just drank some beer and felt fine, though. Nothing over-the-top, like how I usually feel."

"Is that so?" Jojo said. He lowered his gaze to the floor and began to think, very sternly and seriously about his circumstances. This person he'd just met, the place he was in, the place REO was headed, where ever it was; Jojo's mind raced and compiled all his data, always pulling up that one leering, grinning, villainous face in the dark light of his mind.

_The enemy of my enemy...._ Jojo thought. _This man could be useful. I hate to ask him...but..._

"Sir" Jojo began, "if I could guarantee you safety from the government, any captors that may be pursuing you from the Marines, and any hitman that may try to kill you from that gang you mentioned, would you be willing to join the REO Speedwagon foundation?" Red gave him a look, a hard and thoughtless, hollow look. He leaned forward and took his hand off of his gun, no longer feeling the pensive need to defend himself against Jojo's polite advances.

"Son" Red began, "I think you'd better leave soon. Like I said, **I don't want to have to test my Stand's full power out just yet....**" Blood Hound Gang's head growled from over Red's shoulder and menaced Jojo with its powerful, eyeless glare. Jojo sat adamant for but a moment, then left the house, accepting the defeat for his friend. Red took his shotgun in his lap and grinned in the dark. "I didn't want to, but now, I guess I have no choice..."

As Jojo revved his motorcycle he thought he heard a blast. He swore he did, and looked to the house for movement, but through the walls he only felt the cold and hard glaring of the ex-soldier driving him away. With a sigh, he went on, a report in his mind that the signal from Red was of no threat or boon to REO and his men....

* * *

The dark night sky was inhabited by none but those who flew with the stars, all gone unseen by the wandering, worried eyes of the public, cast down to the ground where their feet remained bolted. Starski, with his jet powers, flew from roof to roof and approached the highest-risen building just before the borough of the ghetto where small, one-man family houses were built en mass to support the torn and poor families that were pushed from the city central so quickly. He gazed across the project's rooftop view at all the houses, all dark but the feint glimmering of some distant emergency lights, all silent bu the barking of dogs, and he saw a large procession of huge machinery in the far distance.

"No doubt about that" he said, observing the precise movements of large military personnel carriers moving through the winding ghetto streets with his military-grade binoculars. His eyes slowly scanned the streets even more and found racing through them the fleeting figure of a lone motorcyclist. "Wait a sec" he lowed. "Is that..." he zoomed in and waited for the man to stop. He got a good view of his side, and of his body and build, and he ran all that he knew of people he knew through his mind until the answer came to him like the snapping of a snare. "That's that Jojo kid, isn't it? Of course. Only a high-n-mighty, polite kid like that'd bother stopping at the signs in a neighborhood like that. Nice bike though..." Starski went on observing, unknowing that he alone did not dare to soar with the stars. In the dark night sky some other villains stalked him through the clouds, and now they rested on the same roof. The man in the dark leather mask scaled the side of the building and crawled on his belly across the gravel-laid roof, breathing silently through the slotted holes of his hardened mask.

MB picked up on his presence sooner than Starski and attacked. He summoned DAGON to blow a psychic-wave bubble that burst on the ground in front of the man and sent him tumbling backwards. Starski winced with his eyes shut tight at the sound but didn't complain. He saw the man now, an obvious enemy, regaining himself as he pushed down the roof to stand back up on his heavy, bloody boots. He lowed at Starski, the low of a predator, and they stood against each other with a roof of space between them.

_What the hell is this?_ Starski thought. _Could he be an attacker? Maybe this would be a good time to lay down the signal...._ Starski reached for his pocket to activate his beacon but the man's sharp eyes caught his motions from far across the flat space.

"**HHHRAAAAGGGHH!!!!!**" he roared, moving the pebbles and gravel under Starski's feet. Run DMC was summoned and began charging up air through its intake to spin and concentrate the air it gathered into its turbine hands. The man began running with long, wide, winding steps, going side to side with each dash, gaining ground with pounce after pounce. Starski just stood strong and prepared his attack on solid ground. MB started pulling at Starski's neck, trying to communicate its own honed animal sense of danger, but couldn't break the man's concentration. Upset, MB attacked again with a psychic-bubble, blowing it as the man was in mid-pounce right near Starski.

"Shit!" Starski groaned. In his startled state, he released the energy and blasted a huge bolt of air against the brick roof of the building, destroying a solid chunk of the red wall. He then began to fall and summoned his Stand just in time to brace his impact by blasting air at the ground under him, placing him in a half-hover landing. Starski still hit the pavement of the sidewalk hard and groaned as he recovered. "Damn you...stupid monkey!" he groaned. MB sat on his back as he recovered and ducked back into his shirt when he stood erect. Starski looked up at the wreckage he had caused and rubbed his neck. "Shit. Well, accidents happen. I just hope someone in the city cares enough to fix that, man. These people live hard enough without crap like this going down..."

Starski was shaken from his sympathetic groans when he heard a crashing and bending of metal in a nearby alley. He and MB turned to the darkness in grim anticipation and saw the blood-skinned hand of their attacker gripping the wall. "Ah, shit..." Starski whispered. Another hand curled onto the wall, this one higher up than the other. Starski stopped for a moment and observed in curiosity. Then the head of the man came around the brick and mortar corner, between his two hands, **his body parallel and pressed to the wall. **With a hiss he began crawling on the side of the wall like a lizard, reaching out with fingers that pierced the solid stones and a gnashing mouth underneath his heavy leather mask.

"Oh, shit!" Starski cursed. He began a full retreat. The man pounced from the wall, turned in mid-air and landed hands and feet on the ground. Then, with a frantic, animal running start, he pounced onto a mailbox, jumped to swing from an overhanging street light and leaped high through the air, landing in front of Starski. "DAMN!" Starski shouted. He veered away from the man who threw his arm after him. A dark strand chased Starski from the man's cracked, white skin and snared him by his leg, stopping him in his tracks and throwing him to the ground. Starski turned over with a turbine engine aimed at the man who walked ever closer with thudding footsteps, growling the whole while, and drew the strand of black back into his arm and under his skin.

_What kind of shit is that?_ Starski wondered.

"Hey!" a man shouted. "Hey, yo!" he called again. Starski looked up in a panic, but the leather-masked man had his eyes both pressing powerfully down on Starski, pinning him in place. A man stepped out from the shadows behind the nearby project building wielding nothing but a haughty attitude and unbelted pants fallen down around his crotch. He was some kind of shady character, obviously, being out in such a late hour and harboring to the shadows so much, but Starski's concentration swayed from his presence to the threat that he was passively under. "Yo, greasy-locks, what's good?" the man said, patting the pale killer on his shoulder. "What-chu doing out here, cuz?" Starski saw the man's eyes turn in his direction for a split second.

"**FOOL!!!**" Starski bellowed. He aimed Run DMC's cannon at the man and blasted him with a light cannon of air, sending him off his feet and harmlessly into a bush. It was just in time. The white-skinned man, from the dark cracks in his white flesh, had stabbed a myriad of **sharp, black tendrils into the air** with the intent to skewer that unsuspecting man from every possible angle. Starski rolled backwards onto the street and armed himself with his Stand, and he knew this man was doing the same as the black tendrils came coiling around the man's arm where they tightened together with the creaks of leathery skin rubbing into itself. His arm was thickened by these hideous strands of darkness, granting him an abysmal addition to strength.

Starski turned to look over his shoulder and saw MB retreating with the cell-phone beacon in hand, making his way for the same scenery that he spotted with Starski on the roof. _Alright, good plan, monkey man_ Starski thought, turning back to the fight. _I'll take this freak, you call for Dio. I don't need that kid's help with his ragged bitch, anyhow..._

"Oh shit!" the startled, shady man exclaimed as he recovered to his feet. "Ya'll are crazy! Crazed and manic, man! Ah, shit, help! Someone help!!!" He ran off screaming to the night while two powerful men faced off on the street, one imbued with the power of wind and the other......

* * *

The mysterious man clad in the moving shadows of his cellar domain had spread out four rows of five cards, with one card above the group near him and one below near MUSE. Each card was a Tarot card, all lined in order for MUSE's viewpoint. He let her see the cards over as many times as she wished and awaited her command to explain, never informing her that his speech depended on her talking. MUSE instead picked up the 'World' card and looked it over. The figure in the center was a woman with flowing, golden hair surrounded by clouds with angels bordering each corner. It was card number twenty-one, the highest number of the set. She turned the card around and threw it to him. He caught it and immediately placed it down in its place again, staring at her with his wide, glowing, concentric-circled eyes.

"I have a certain hunch" MUSE said "that my card is 'the World'."

"Is that from sheer egoism" the man asked "or are you simple that incredibly astute as to how these cards are natured?" MUSE sat back and brushed the hair from her shoulder.

"Why don't you educate me" she said "on their true nature?"

"Of course" he said. He first picked up the 'Fool' card, bearing the number zero, placed nearest to him above the rest of the cards. The first in the set below the number one. "This card represents infinite possibility. It is the beginning of a journey, so to speak. It is marked with the number zero, of course meaning that its possibilities are equally endless numerically. Any card number added to this yields the same card, no different result, and therefore this card stands on equal ground no matter what it placed against. It is up to those who wield it to play it properly, for zero is a trump that trumps even the highest numbers, but is still outplayed by any number higher than it. Follow me?"

"Of course" MUSE said. "You think I'm so prudent that I don't know even basic card game mechanics?"

"Fair enough" he said. "The Fool Stand is represented by unlimited potential and growth. It is not a single, static entity. Once summoned, it is at its weakest power and can only grow and expand from there. A Fool's power is without limit, or bound or ration! The Fool can do anything. In that sense, **the Fool may be your greatest enemy, for even the Fool can trump the WORLD!!!**" With that he slammed the card back down the the table and let MUSE baste in his humorless smile. "In regard to your previous selection, you are correct. Your Stand, whatever you've named it, is of the World."

"And what does that mean?" she asked.

"That it has no potential growth" he explained. "Only the potential to **unlock.** Unlike the Fool, which grows as it is used and adapts itself to those uses, the World has its own purpose and its own united entity before ever being summoned. It has a sealed power that is brought out by its user either willingly or during a unison of energies and power. Indeed, the World is born with great power, but in the hands of the weak unwilling to use it, that power is locked away from them. You, obviously, are no such person. Therefore, I can tell you that your Stand is indeed a dangerous and powerful thing."

"Of course it is" she said, summoning it enough so that its head was rested on her shoulder from behind and its arm was clutched around her shoulders.

"These two contrasting cards" he said, bringing both cards together in his hand "also hold some interesting definitions to the characteristics not of the people who wield them, but of the Stands themselves. For instance, the Fool has the potential of growth not only in power, **but in its free will.** A Fool's Stand can become its own entity when it has become strong enough, or detached enough, and may act against its user's will in accordance with its own."

"That doesn't seem possible" MUSE said. "A Stand is a reflection of one's own inner psychic abilities. They aren't living. They are merely tools that reflect my own desires for power, for change..."

"True" the man agreed "but that's not to say that other's aren't so conflicted that their mind and the mind of their Stand are in quarrel. Not all users are so straight-minded and objective as you that their conscience isn't split between their needs and their wants. Some Stands personify the id. Others the ego. Some the super-ego. All strictly Freudian terms, of course, but the principal for any psychological aspect remains the same. A Fool's Stand developing free will is either a cry for help from the user or a possible onset of a detached, disassociate personality. The World Stands are the opposite. No matter what their greatest level of power is, they remain a part of their user's living will, and always act on that will, even unconsciously on part of the user."

"Unconsciously?" MUSE repeated. "Without my knowing, my Stand could act on what I deem is necessary? Or on what it was created for?"

"It already knows all of that" the man said. "The World Stand represents as its card does. Singularity, unity across all humanity. It is you just as much as you are, even the parts you don't know." MUSE stared at him distantly and cupped her chin with a curled finger, pondering the thoughts and the words and all she had heard and gathering them all into a common pool of understanding. As hard as it was for her to comprehend it all so suddenly, she quickly made sense of it and lifted her head to the ceiling which began to rumble with the passing of heavy vehicles high overhead.

"Astella" MUSE said, "I believe some unexpected guests are about to arrive. Could you do us a favor and see that they don't try to wreck our party?"

"Of course" Astella said, grinding her thick, wide hands together with a crack of her knuckles. She twisted her hands around and bent her fingers backwards, then bent them further until they were twisted fully and wiggled her fingers as they remained netted together. "I won't let up for a moment. **Coldplay** and I will make sure nothing survives...."

"Of course" MUSE said. Astella left and the door shut behind her. She looked back, forgetting that there ever was a door, remembering distinctly that there seemingly hadn't been before, then simply shrugged it off and walked to face the incoming fighters to face her with unknown powers...


	48. Coldplay 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

The man in heavy black roared a hollow, ghastly roar and from his back drew out a myriad of reaching, tentacle tendrils. He threw them forward at will and they pierced through the hard asphalt and concrete of the street. Starski retreated with a sudden blast of air and charged up an intake of air with his Stand.

"**Torch it!"** Starski roared. The air was channeled through the right turbine arm of Run DMC and a bright, blazing welding flame appeared in the air that hovered near his pointing finger. "Come on and try it, bitch. I'll cut your arm off and solder your asshole together!" The man took no offense to the threat and no threat to Starski's offense. Starski ran forward, keeping his power concentrated on super-heating a spearhead of air. He stabbed it forward at the man, but he dodged to the side. Starski planted his feet and grinned. "HA!" and Starski jabbed his elbow straight into the man's throat. The evil white-skinned creature stumbled backwards from the hard blow to its throat but recovered fast and jabbed his fist forward in a straight up punch.

"You crazy?" Starski said. He slashed his welding point with a sweep of his finger but the man drew away in time and rose up his forearm with its splitting skin leading into the deep, moving blackness over his muscles. Starski saw the attack incoming and tried to put up a guard. The man shot out a thick cluster of sharp tendrils that hit Starski like a shotgun blast. He was thrown down the road and rolled as he landed, pushing himself up to cough out the spittle that has amassed when his gut was hit so hard. The man was already sprinting toward him with his leg thick and bulging with the gathered tentacles underneath his skin.

"**KAAA!!!!"** he shouted as he delivered a running punt-kick to Starski's gut. Starski was kicked off the ground and began spinning around. With the flame still armed on the tip of his finger, he threw out his arm in an unconscious, limp act and let his body become a rotating welding saw. The man received a cut of flaming sparks along his chest and a thick, black burn scarred from his hip up across his shoulder. The man grunted as Starski rolled away through the air. He landed in a hard thud and blasted the air under him to jet up to his feet in recovery.

_This guy_ Starski thought, _even after taking a direct burn like that, he's still up and willing to fight? Is his skin made of leather along with his fucked-up clothes? Or....maybe..._ Starski took a hard glance through the air at his foe and the scar that ran across his chest. He slowly set himself square to Starski again. He lowed with an animal growl and tried to deliver an animistic threat to his current foe. The black scar was still searing and glowed with embers from where Starski had burned him. **Then it moved, just another tendril extending out from his shoulder wrapped around his skin.** He was unharmed. "Bullshit!" Starski shouted.

The man opened his mouth and stretched his mask. He took in a sharp, growling breath and sprinted forward. The skin of his right forearm peeled apart and a mass of twisting, black tentacle tendrils squirmed out. He shouted and threw his arm forward. Starski dodged to the side as a cascade of sharp, black tendrils pierced into the ground and coiled and writhed like snakes. They kept coming from the man's skin and wrapped around Starski's leg.

"!?" Starski felt his leg get wrapped around his ankle, but he managed to jerk his leg away before more tendrils came at him. Even though he dodged the constant onslaught of attacks, the one around him that wiggled around with the life of a rope and slacked all from the man's arm was concerning him the most. "Even if it's a Stand, I can get it off! Run DMC!" His Stand was summoned with the turbine joint of its leg jutted out as a sharp foot and he stomped on the black tendril with force to split the ground. The tendril, however, **remained untouched.**

_What kind of Stand is this?_ Starski thought. The tendril came to life and wound itself tight around Starski's ankle. He felt like it was about to snap and tried to jerk his leg away to safety. He summoned his Stand to take in a blast of air with a loud, shaking whine of its turbines and fired at the man. His greasy, dreadlocked hair was blow back but his body remained steady in its stance. He roared and gripped the single tentacle strand that was attached to Starski's leg. He yanked on it and tightened the grip, jerking a snap from Starski's foot.

"Shit!" Starski shouted. "It's broken! No helping that!" Starski let himself fall back and aimed Run DMC's turbines, both arms, in the mysterious man's direction. He saw the ground around him was covered with his black tendrils and he was fastened to the floor. The man let out a huffing, growling animal-like laugh. "**FUCK YOU!!"** Starski roared. He aimed further down and blasted the ground from under the man. His tendrils were not woven like Starski thought, but embedded down through the concrete. **There was no telling how far they went.** _Shit!_ Starski realized he was outmatched. The man gripped the tendril that bound them together with both hands and started to reel it in rapidly. It wound back into his arm and under his skin the closer Starski was brought.

_I've used up my reserves for now_ Starski realized. _Run DMC can't do another big attack so suddenly. Guess I'll have to take a risk on this and fight without my Stand._ "Try and dodge this, **fucker!**" Starski pulled out a gun and fired. It hit the man's mask and deflected off, but the proximity and power of the shot was still enough to snap the man's head so far back that his body had to follow and he fell onto the back of his head while his back arched and his legs buckled to keep the rooted ankles and feet from breaking.

"_**HUUUAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!"**_ he roared in pain. Starski's leg was released and he hopped away, keeping his injured foot in the air and away from any solid object. He continued to shuffle away until he reached the door of the nearby project building.

_Is this a good idea?_ Starski thought. _In any case I need to keep fighting this guy, but, with my ankle broken I don't think I can survive out here for long. At least inside, his movements will be a little more limited. I've got no choice. I need to get outta here while he's bitching about that bullet to the head._

The man stopped his screaming and drew his black tendrils back into his body. With his body free to move again, he rolled onto the sidewalk and pounded his open palms against the ground. He propped himself up on the iron-solid toes of his thick, black boots and grunted as his hands rose up and slammed to the ground. With one last, loud, animal grunt he pounded his palms so hard that the tendrils shot out from under his nails and a **writhing, black mass erupted from the skin of his back.**

"**Hhhhhhhhaaaaaa!!!!**" he lowed. He rose up to his feet and leaned back, drawing the tentacles back in and opening his mouth behind his mask so wide that the stitches holding his grinning mouth slit together stretched and snapped.

"_**!!!!!!!!"**_ The man leaned back down and made a rush on all-fours for the door that Starski had locked behind him. He charged into it back-first and blasted it down. He was in a hall where the residents peeked out from the doors to see the previous suspicious man who groaned and limped his way around. Now this creature of a man had burst down their door, and questions were firing off rapidly.

"Hey punk!" a tenant shouted. "What's your problem!? What the fuck's your problem, bursting down the door. You know what we gotta pay to get that replaced, you jack-ass pu-" The man wound back his arm, coiled it with the tendrils under his skin and bulged it with the writhing, powerful tentacles. He smashed the man's head against the wall with a sick, bloody splatter of blood. He was dead instantly, his head crushed against the man's powerful, iron fist and the weak project wall. The rest of the people in the hall immediately broke into panic and locked themselves behind their doors. The man marched through the halls, wicked death, with a leather grin on his artificial face.

* * *

The roar of a motorcycle reached the echoing border of the dilapidated suburbs and dulled down. Its rider dismounted and carried his helmet with him as he made his way through the military blockade of huge, heavy military transports, all marked indiscreetly with the initials REO. Jojo leaped on top of one and carefully hopped along its laddered side to the ground. He moved up to a soldier and had a gun pointed at him with a bright, blue light shining from its top.

"Ah! Jojo!" the soldier said. Jojo recognized that crude, casual accent and was not surprised to see his friend with his hair all bound up behind the same black mask as his soldiers but still wearing his stylish, never-parted bowler derby hat. "You made it back! Why didn't you radio me?" Jojo looked at his helmet and saw the radio he had forgotten to use. He just tossed it aside and faced his friend again.

"Looks like you've gotten everything pretty under control, right?" Jojo asked.

"Of course!" REO said proudly. "Who do you think I am?" Jojo leaned to the side and looked past REO to watch the soldiers scrambling around in militant formations and executing tactical motions together. They were all armed with guns, some with larger weapons than most, and all their guns had the same blue-light emitters fastened to them. They hid behind quickly deployed and movable cover and some hid behind poorly parked vehicles and some cars that lined the street belonging to the people living nearby. All the houses had been convinced to ignore the anomoly and dim their lights, surrounding the target abode in the precise blasts of light from the heavy spotlights armed at the top of each transport. The scene looked like an elaborate military raid, an entire force waiting to take down a single person inside.

"You know," Jojo began, "I don't want to get in the way of how you do this. I mean, it's your company and your...army, but is it really wise to look like we want to fight if we really _don't?_"

"No need to worry" REO said simply with a smile on his face. Jojo waited for him to elaborate, but a call was issued and REO moved away. Jojo followed him, keeping up with his military march step in step.

"It seems to me" Jojo said "that if they saw you like this inside, wouldn't they assume that we came for a fight and forgo any kind of negotiation at all?"

"We're no longer here to negotiate" REO said. "According to my confidante we are here to fight, and that's how we have to present ourselves."

"Your confidante?" Jojo asked. He accidentally bumped into a tall and robust looking soldier whose face was hidden by a visor. He nodded to Jojo and went on his own way. Jojo nodded back politely and followed REO.

"You know who it is" REO said. "If you don't have armor, you'll want to step back. Ripple or not, if you don't have a Stand or a gun you're a liability."

"Jojo!" Brad shouted. The young man came running up, sans helmet like REO, with his special-ops armor latched and clipped to his body. He had on a black, velvet beret hat given to him by REO to keep his identity plainly separate in case a Stand fight broke out. "Hey, Jojo! You're back!"

"Yeah, I am" Jojo said.

"Did you find that guy?" Brad asked.

"Oh yeah" Jojo said. "There's nothing to worry about, though. He's a Stand user, like REO thought, but he's a neutral party. He doesn't even know what his Stand is fully capable of yet, so I doubt he'd give us any trouble if he knew about us."

"Even so" REO said, rejoining the conversation. "It's a good thing you confronted him to be sure, Jojo. If we didn't know we'd end up wasting man-power keeping that power in check."

"Speaking of wasting man-power, REO" Jojo began, "just how much is this operation of yours costing?"

"Don't get like that on me now, Jojo" REO said. "We have a potentially catastrophic situation on our hands. If we let it escalate at all we could be culpable for any damage that the city incurs simply by our direct association with the free manipulations of Stand energy!"

"What!?" Brad exclaimed.

"He's saying" Jojo began in a low tone "that because he can be responsible, he and his company are responsible for it. Is that how it is, REO?" REO didn't speak. He had his sights on his gun lined up and was getting comfortable behind his cover. Jojo stepped down behind his cover as well, followed down by Brad who pressed his back to the solid metal wall behind him. "What kind of selfish intentions did this originate from, REO? Are you really willing to be responsible for everyone that's already dead in the city? Or those who might not make it? And Erina? Are you ready to be responsible for her too?" REO didn't answer immediately. He tucked up his face mask over his mouth and lowered a headset microphone from the piece he wore on his ear.

"Jojo" REO began, "she's in the vehicle behind the one right next to us. If you want to see the extent of responsibility I'm willing to take then go look at her for yourself. I have a mission to oversee...." Jojo could sense his friend's disharmony and left him.

"Good luck, REO" Jojo said with a hinting scathe in his voice. REO stayed on his target while Brad watched the entire exchange.

"What was that about?" Brad asked.

"Get on your mark, Bangalter!" REO ordered. Brad flinched and moved away. He could see the steel nerves in REO's face, but at the same time he knew that his eyes were shaking with fear.

_Why accept all that if you don't need to?_ Brad wondered. _These guys....I just can't keep up with them, it seems. They're too mature for me to comprehend..._ Jojo, meanwhile, was cleared by the soldiers still standing at the vehicle in question, to enter it. The back was cleared of any military transportation equipment and had only medical supplies. It was a widened ambulance on first appearance but with more machines powered by a low-humming generator from the car's undercarriage. Jojo saw Erina lying on her bed, peacefully sleeping with an IV running from her arm and electrical nodes secured to her skin on her chest and her head. The wires from the nodes ran into machines that gave out constant readings of both her brainwave and another, stranger wave that Jojo didn't recognize from any hospital machine he'd ever seen.

"Erina" Jojo said. He took to the side of her stretcher and stood over her. He flexed his grip and made a tight fist, breathing in the sacred Sun Ripple that he knew so well and breathed automatically much of the time. He opened his palm and saw the bright yellow energy moving apart as a broken net of light in his palm, and he moved his hand to Erina's head. He parted the hair of her bangs and then brought his hand away. Just the slight touch of his finger to her forehead and she made a conscious sigh. Jojo became anticipatory to see her wake up, but she was asleep still. The sigh was only a passing effect of the Ripple, and it was over in an instant. Jojo sighed and gripped his fist tight, this time in anger.

_Why_ he wondered _am I so useless right now!? Half the world seems to have this power but me...why not me? What is inside me that refuses to be controlled so harshly?_ Jojo looked down at his fist once more and, beside it, he saw The World, **clutching the same fist next to his. **The Stand hovered beside him, an echo of his own body and its breathing, and it had the same pale, living glow that radiated from Jojo constantly, an invisible force that imitated its source almost flawlessly. Jojo turned to its face and its eye turned from its centered stare, followed by a tilt of its head. _I must control it. I have to take hold of it! No matter what, this power inside me is a part of me! Be it evil or unknown, I won't let myself lose to it!_ His Stand disappeared and he pounded his heart to his chest.

_I will defeat this fear I have! I will! I WILL!!!_ Jojo sped out from the vehicle in a rush, leaving Erina alone once more.

* * *

The front lines were a cold place all of a sudden. Jojo was held back by a soldier and forced to watch the front lines move without him, and without REO who stayed in the back. A loose group of three men approached the house from two windows and its front door. The man at the door knocked and casually called inside.

"Anyone home?" he shouted. No response. After a measured pass of time, one timed internally and in perfect unison by the group of men, the man at the door turned to it with his gun forward and kicked the door down. The other two men busted the windows and jumped inside. Jojo couldn't see the rest but waited eagerly for his chance to jump in, watching his fingers curl up into a fist and back out again time after time with the feint echo of his Stand behind them.

"This is Breacher" the leading man of the infiltration called over his headset. "We're in the house. No contact yet."

"Switch to visuals and stay alert" REO said. The soldiers inside lowered goggles over their eyes which became green and night vision was theirs. They kept low and aimed in all different directions, moving together as a single, collective-minded unit through the empty house, unaware of whether it was empty or not. They stayed alert and turned their sights to the back of the house. The leader called again.

"Breacher" he began. "House is empty."

"Check the basement" REO commanded. "According to our mapping data, there _is_ a basement to that house. Find an entrance to it."

"Yes sir" the man said. He turned to a door between the dusty living room and the hollowed kitchen and approached it slowly. He placed a hand to it, sensed danger, and ordered his team to take cover as he backed away from the door. Looking through the blue light the door seemed normal, yet there was an eerie quality covering it that defied a direct explanation.

"Possible contact" Breacher said. "Awaiting orders."

"Move in" REO ordered. The man grunted and made a running kick at the door. It was knocked down and slid down the ragged wooden stairs into the basement. Down at the bottom of the steps, standing in plain sight, was a person. **A hard-jawed woman with a curled, cynical smirk.**

"Contact!" Breacher shouted.

"Fire at will!" REO ordered. The man fired bullets in a spray, but in the blue stream of light he saw them deflected by the flash-quick punches of a barely visible fist. The woman stomped on the door and ascended the stairs, smiling the whole while as the man emptied a full clip in short bursts at her, hitting nothing.

"Stand is confirmed!" Breacher called. "Guard level A! Be advised! Targeti-" His voice was cut out as his breathing was stopped. He dropped his gun with the barrel still steaming and clutched at his throat. The air within his lungs was steadily frozen and through the battle vest and armor he wore his skin was frozen into ice. In a manner of seconds his entire body was glazed over with a frozen sheen, **and he was dead.**

"Pitiful mortal man" Astella said, tapping the man's nose with her finger. "It's not like you had a chance with your silly little toy weapon. Who do you think you are?" She took her fingers around Breacher's frozen nose and snapped it off. She crushed it in her fist and crumbled the frail ice into a snowy powder in her chilling grip. "My Stand **Coldplay** can freeze anything to pure ice! I can turn you and your stupid gun into nothing more than snow by rapidly decelerating the water particles in your body to the point where they reach a frozen temperature. You know, the human body is mostly water anyway, so it's super-easy to freeze. Metals are harder, but even they can be destroyed by the cold..." Astella reached down and picked up the gun he dropped. With it in her hand her Stand worked and she was able to crush it into frozen shrapnel pieces that fell to the ground and broke even further upon impact.

The soldiers in hiding had drawn down their microphones and stayed their breath long enough for Astella's haughty confession to be clearly heard by REO. Astella began moving through the room to leave when, from around the corner of the living room, another man appeared and fired his gun. Astella brought her arms together and blocked the bullets, unaware that from the kitchen another man emerged and fired at her as well. Her eyes met the other man as he drew out, and by the combined strength of both of their blue lights her Stand was revealed, blocking their bullets with both its arms.

It was a knightly, masculine Stand covered in smooth metal armor plating with studded spikes lining the top of its flat breast plate. Rings of studs ran along its shoulder pads, around the armor that disconnected at each shoulder joint, at each leg joint, and finally a straight line of small studs on each pointed, armored foot. It's whole appearance was basically like a knight but its hands were bone wrapped in moving ice that was hard as steel. The face was similarly themed to be that of a knight and had a slotted mouth-guard drawn down from the rotating joint that could pose it over its head at will. Its head ran a cross of studded lines crossing at the top of its cranium and running down between its eyes settled deep within its iron-wrought face holes. From the bare area between the beginning of its helmet and the back of its neck, a long stream of silken, glittering hair flew out and ran down past the Stand's guarded hips. An armored knight with a frozen touch, all blue as it was illuminated by such lights. This was Coldplay.

"You useless pricks!" Astella shouted. Once one ran out of bullets the other continued to fire and Astella focused on moving for the reloader as fast as she could. Her Stand kept guarding her from behind as she made a rush at the man closest to the front door.

"I'm retreating through the front!" the soldier called. "Fire at target on command!" He ran out the front and waved his gun around. Astella was expected to come any second. He managed to get behind cover and reload his gun in the time that passed, and still the target did not come. The fire from inside the house had ceased as well.

"What happened?" Brad asked.

"Looks like we have two down already" REO said. He put out a broadcast to all the troops around him. "Anti-cover personnel, commence free fire on building. Assume both inside to be dead by target." Men rose up from cover with huge guns and rested them on rotating turrets on the edge of their cover. They aimed at the walls randomly, guided by dim blue dots, and opened fire. Their bullets blasted from their guns like cracks of thunder. The bullets blasted holes in the wall and made the surface they shot through appear thin and fragile. The power of their weaponry left the house a smoking ruin after only a single clip had been emptied from each gun.

"Grenadier!" REO shouted. From across the makeshift battlefield a man stood up and crouched down with a rocket-launcher held across his shoulder, a weapon unlike any Jojo had seen before. He braced his ears. "Fire!" REO commanded. The man aimed his shot carefully for the already broken windows and a missile fired out. It went straight into the house, detonated and blew apart the weakened walls that were filled with hollow holes from bullets. The entire house shook itself to a noisy collapse and the neighborhood was instantly awakened. The men with cover hid behind it as a rush of air blew past them. Jojo hid behind the vehicle with his ears still braced yet ringing from the explosion and waited for an all clear sign to be displayed by the nearby soldiers.

"Stand ground" REO called to them. "Target not confirmed dead...." The scene was as hectic as it was tense. Smoke cleared almost endlessly and blew away into the night winds while people watched from blocks away, half in awe and half in terror, all of them with the same motivation in mind to call the police. REO gripped his gun tight and peered through the scope equipped under the blue light, and he prepared himself for battle.

Standing in that smoking ruin was the standing, living body of Astella with her hair blowing freely, surrounded by **frozen fire.**

"That's all you can do?" she wondered, leaving the frost around her to turn into snow and drift away with the embers. She turned to her foes with a haughty, evil smile and huffed them casually out of her concern. "How embarrassing for you. I came for a war, **and you fight like girls..."**


	49. Coldplay 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Astella and her Stand, the royally armored Coldplay, stood in the desolate grounds of the ruined house around her with a cynical glare cast onto the mass of soldiers. REO and his fellow Stand users could see the Stand behind her, an icy blue knight in shining, ice-glossed armor. She walked through the wreckage, her Stand following her as it frosted the ground where she stepped, and made her way toward a random barrier hiding the well-armed soldiers.

"Do not engage" REO commanded. "The Stand users will do that. Once an opportunity comes, take it to fall back and guard the vehicles. If she starts attacking you have permission to use anything in your arsenal to stop her." With REO's command issued he immediately stood out of cover and opened fire. Coldplay guarded its user by punching the bullets away. They skimmed by REO's face and impacted into his armor with dull, hard thuds. He was unharmed after emptying a clip and more importantly had caught the girl's attention.

"I'm immune to bullets, little man" Astella said as she turned on REO. "Lucky for you, my reach is limited."

"That _is_ lucky!" REO shouted. He threw his gun to his left and it landed next to Brad. He took the gun and fled under the cover of the barriers. REO rose his arm up and began pumping it to spin his chain Stand, Trapt, around in the air. It made an invisible whooshing sound as it whipped through the air, growing out more and more from his gripped palm, swinging further and faster with each quick whip his arm made. Astella scoffed and stomped the ground. **"HYAH!!!"** REO shouted. He threw his chain forward and it whipped in a winding, snaking motion through the air at Astella's face. Coldplay moved to intercept it, just as REO intended, and with another quick whip the chain was coiled tight around Coldplay's wrist. REO braced his legs against the metal barrier and began pulling. Coldplay pulled back with only its arm, bringing REO to an upright stand with his feet flat on the surface of his barricade.

"Whoops!" REO exclaimed. "No knowledge without trial and error, eh?" REO snapped his wrist and threw his arm, disengaging the chain and its bind on Coldplay's arm. Free once more Astella started an attack and came rushing forward. REO rolled back and rose back up to his feet with his arms brought up to guard him against her incoming attack. Brad kept himself to the shadows and armed the barrel-attached grenade-launcher on his gun. Astella vaulted over the barricade and flew at REO. Brad fired the grenade-launcher and her body was engulfed with smoke and sudden fire. She was blown into the hood of a van with a frosty trail following her. Coldplay had blocked the explosion itself for her.

"Oh you little cock-sucker!" Astella lowed with a nefarious grin. She slammed her elbows into the metal of the hood and shoved herself free of the crunched metal bind. She started a run straight for Brad, ignoring REO, who was already attacking. He shot out his chain near her legs and waited for it to catch around an ankle. Then he snapped it around and pulled it back with all his might. The chain snared around Astella's thick ankle and she was tripped. As her body fell Brad raced back and fired. Coldplay kept itself standing and blocked the bullets. Brad summoned his Stand, Linkin Park, and Brad shot into its hand. The kinetic energy from the bullet was gathered and the Stand's body started to glow a bright green.

_This may take up most of my power_ Brad thought _but I can't let this fight go on until someone else dies. If I can finish it now we can rest assured that we've done the right thing!_ With that in mind Linkin Park continued catching bullets and absorbing their force. With all the wheels spinning fast Brad threw his gun away and saw a path he could run. He started in a quick dash to the side, jumped onto the flat top of a barricade, hopped across it to the next and then quickly crouched down to jump up. He flipped through the air with his leg guiding his body down in a spinning ax-kick. He slammed his heel into Astella's back then jumped from her body and landed with a slide across the sidewalk. Coldplay reached out for him with a sudden grab of its fingers, snapping like an angry jaw. Brad was just outside of her reach and felt the cold nip sharply at his skin. His breath was visible and the ground beneath him had been thinly coated with ice.

"If I touch you I get frozen, eh?" Brad said as Astella pushed herself up to her feet. She snarled at Brad and summoned up her Stand. Coldplay made a sweep across the grass and turned the blades of grass into ice.

"Yeah" Astella growled. "You've got it kid!" Astella swept her arm across the grass and shattered the frozen blades and dirt into sharp, flying shrapnel. Coldplay wound back its arm and gave a mighty sweep. The grass blades flew at Brad and REO behind him, but Brad stood firm and stood forward with an arm raise up. The frozen blades hit him and shattered, even on his face. Astella stood up full and scowled with confusion, her strands of hair falling over her face. "Huh?" she grunted. "Even if your armor can handle it, why isn't your face cut? Those blades were like glass. You should at least be feeling a little pain!"

"Nope" Brad said. "Even though it's a little taxing, or even if it's hard to keep up, I'm the kind of guy who never backs down from pain no matter what! What would a free-runner, a _parkour_ master like me, be if I was afraid of getting a sprain or breaking my leg!? I'd be a pussy, that's what!" Brad opened his hand and held a bullet firmly between his fingers. "I'd like to see something with such limited speed and range block this!" Brad squeezed the bullet and pointed it at Astella's face. Coldplay instantly snapped forward to defend with its arms up and guarding. **"BAM!!!"** The kinetic force still in Linkin Park was charged into his fingers and transferred into the bullet. It blasted forward, whizzing just past Coldplay and through the flesh of Astella's unguarded arm with so much force her skin was twisted and a hold was bore down into her muscles. Blood shot out from the pit in her arm and she was overcome with pain.

_Shit!_ Astella thought. _Coldplay's body is thinner than mine, so it couldn't block all of me at once! Shit! I underestimated this brat....but it's fine. He's still, all of them, **are in my range!!!**_ Astella managed to stand again and pointed her still good arm to Brad who stood with the air of pure victory arrogantly displayed on his face.

"You're going down!"Brad said, pumping his arm down with his thumb extended. Astella smirked and laughed to herself. The whole display to dishearten her did nothing but give her the resolve to stand up straighter and summon her Stand to fight once more.

"We'll see, kid..." she lowed.

* * *

"Everyone is being asked to stay back" the soldier said. "Please, Mr. Joestar, respect that for now."

"What?" Jojo said with insulted astonishment. "Hey! I'm a Stand user too! If that's the reason we have to stay back then let me fight! I've got plenty of power!"

"Sorry, Mr. Joestar" the soldier said. "We have your profile. According to Mr. Speedwagon, your Stand powers haven't yet developed to a usable point. Therefore-"

"Haaa" Jojo sighed. "Man, I'm not a little kid, you know? I'm a full-grown adult! I know the risks, I know what I'm doing. Just calm down and leave me be already!"

"No can do, sir" the soldier said. Jojo placed his hand on the man's shoulder and adapted a somewhat depressed expression. He squeezed his hand and sighed a breath of the Sun, sending a crackling Sun ripple through the man's body and stunning him with an overflow of energy. He fell over as his mind was bent and his natural energy was surged.

_Just like overloading an electrical current_ Jojo thought _even this power of mine is somewhat dangerous. But now there's nothing to hold me back from joining the fight!_ Jojo rushed out of his cover and saw the standoff already in progress. A great, broken crater dented the edge of the barrier in front of him, made by the bullet that Brad had previously fired. He saw two guns on the ground abandoned by their former wielders who had run away, leaving them there to lighten their hasty retreat. Then he saw the battle already in progress. Brad was facing down the enemy, his Stand's wheels static again and its posture stricken in the most cliché Bruce Lee pose while Brad just stood with his arm crossed and legs parted. REO stood up behind him with Trapt wrapped around his fist and glowered hard at the tall, muscular woman facing him down.

"Ha!" Astella laughed in a scoffing, insulting manner. "Hahahaha!!! Pathetic! You know that with either of those Stands, part of you still has to touch me for them to work! No matter what, my limited range is inconsequential. You'll have to come to me no matter what!"

"Maybe" Brad said. "However, I still have a **gun, bitch!**" Brad drew out a gun from his waist holster and fired the entire clip. Jojo jumped behind the cover on instinct, should a stray projectile miss its mark and fly his way. He felt his body pressured from underneath by the guns on the ground and began to think with his quick, whip-smart wit.

_They can't touch her_ Jojo thought _because of her power. Then I can't touch her either. Still, if I want to fight I'll need to get close. Her guard is good enough to block bullets at such a close range. As long as she's on guard with her Stand I can't really try to fight with her one-on-one, but with Brad distracting her Stand I can rush in from behind for a sneak attack! I just need something to protect myself if The World won't reply to me immediately..._ Jojo picked up one of the guns and cocked it back. Then he ran a hand over its long barrel up to the main grip. The Sun Ripple that crackled through it expanded the tight metal bolts and screws holding the high-grade plastic and metal frame in place. Then the gun was instantly dismantled. The barrel fell off, leaving the rubber-braced grip with the trigger and the firm butt of the gun. Jojo unloaded the clip and tossed it away apathetically.

_It's a bit crude_ Jojo thought as he equipped it _but it's a weapon. An impromptu tonfa!_ Jojo repeated his process on the remaining gun so he could have two of the same weapon to assist him. Meanwhile the fight continued between Coldplay and Linkin Park. The advantage obviously lied with Coldplay, for every punch would freeze what it touched and the effect bled over into chilling Brad's body and numbing his skin. Coldplay punched with the same rapidity it blocked bullets with while Linkin Park blocked like a boxer.

"A little help?" Brad asked. Astella looked behind him and saw that REO had gone. She turned quickly and saw the man with his chain wrapped around a rocket-launcher to steady it.

"Take this, bitch!" REO shouted. "Fire!" He launched a rocket-propelled grenade straight at her, held back by his chain to keep its path straight. Its rocket jet carried it forward but against the pull and straightening of REO's steadying chain. "Just a little more! Almost there!" Astella saw and heard the explosive coming the whole time it was fired. She brought her Stand to guard it while rushing in to overpower Brad with her sheer power and weight. The cocky young man simply took a step back to aim his other side at her while his arms steamed from the contrast of their frigid temperature and the humidity of the evening air. Linkin Park's wheels spun with charge from absorbing the kinetic force of each and every punch Coldplay had thrown, not that Astella knew it herself.

"What good is a weapon in a weak hand?" Astella shouted. "My Stand isn't just powerful because of its ability, but because I can guide it flawlessly at will! I have it controlled by my subconscious! I barely have to think to command it! That's the secret to my power, is **multi-tasking!** What do you have to brag about!!??" Astella through a powerful clothesline elbow into Brad's face just as Coldplay deflected the explosion and froze the smoke as it billowed in the air. The fire generated by the explosion was frozen inside the thick casing of ice around it, and was soon snuffed out by the lack of air it received.

"Fuck!" REO shouted. "Now she's completely defended from this side. Get that wall down! Where are the flamethrowers!?"

"None, sir!" a soldier shouted. "Initiating flank!"

"Shit!" REO groaned. He palmed at his forehead and angrily brushed up the brim of his hat. _If only I'd managed to think ahead this far! Flamethrowers would be a perfect weapon to use!!!_ "Whatever, clear the area, initiate flank and blow that damn wall apart! We're going full ballistic from here on out!"

"Sir!" a soldier called over the radio channel. "Sir, watch the field! We have civilian interference!"

"What!?" REO exclaimed. "From who!?"

Astella's elbow was stayed motionless in Brad's face, his cocky grin not wavering and his nose not bending past its own natural curve.

"You can control temperature, right?" Brad said. "How'd you say it, you can remove water molecules, forcing temperature to drop instantly, then replace them as it drops to form ice, frost, snow and shit? Well you've made a huge mistake in attacking me with force, because that's my power. **I control force!**" In came Linkin Park with its palms together at the wrists and delivered an open-palm blow charged with all the force gathered from the rapid onslaught of Coldplay's punches. Astella was jarred in her fly backwards and into the edge of her icy wall. She was in plain sight of the battlefield again while Brad rubbed his arms with half-frozen fingers wrapping around. "Shit, it feels like my arms were soaked in Novocain! That bitch!"

"You son of a bitch" Astella growled. She held onto the side of her ice wall with thin blood coming from her mouth. She summoned Coldplay again and its frozen fingers made a clawing grab at the air in front of it. Astella was not watching her back for once. Her rage against the confident Brad and her defense against the rest of the soldiers around her had led her hubris to lower her most important guard. In rushed Jojo, in a powerful sprint with both arms equipped with military-grade material tonfas gripped tight in his fists and pressed along the edge of each forearm. Coldplay caught his presence and his heat a moment too late and he was airborne. Brad saw him coming in slowly, descending from his vault from stepping onto the foldout barrier into a flying leap with his right arm drawn far back. He twisted his body around and brought that arm forward with as much force as he could humanly power, right into the side of Astella's loosened and unguarded neck.

"**ORAAAAAAAA!!!!!"** he shouted, his brave call of battle initiated. Jojo fell from his attack in a roll along the ground and came out standing on the balls of his feet with both arms up and tonfa aimed Astella who was toppled into her icy wall. It cracked under her weight and the blood from her mouth became a little bit thicker....

* * *

"It sounds curiously loud up there" said the man. "Perhaps today's session should be canceled on account of the weather?"

"It may be unsafe" MUSE replied "to drive in such harsh rain. Very well. I thank you for everything you've told me, good sir. I trust we shall eventually meet again?"

"But of course" the man said. He folded up all the up-turned Tarot cards into a stack with but a swift pass of his hand over the table they were spread out on. In another pass of his arm the table vanished and the space between he and MUSE was blank. She excused herself and made for the only exit she knew, out into the battle. The man stood up silently and cleared his throat.

"Knowing everything already" he said "why bother to take the long way **there?**" MUSE stopped. A sinister glimmer shone in the corner of her eye. She turned back around with a haughty twist of her hips.

"And you have a better way of getting me there, do you?" she said. The man's grin was shining white from out of the dark shadows around him. The mad concentric circles in his eyes started spinning in perfect harmony. MUSE stared straight into the strangeness and lost track of him for but a second. He tipped down his tall hat right next to her and smirked.

"It's all relative, my dear" he said. MUSE turned with a start and summoned her Stand, calming down the instant she saw him so close to her.

"Don't tell me...." she began. "but, could your power be something akin to...**teleportation?**"

"Ah, no" the man said. "As useful as that certainly would be, it is not my power, though I am able to incorporate it a bit with what I _can_ do. I would suggest that, if you ever find somebody who can purely and truly teleport in any manner, you should make good use of them. Even I have never met such a person..." MUSE turned to him fully and faced him with a respect. The man passed his hand over the rusted iron bars of a cell and they vanished. He opened his hand to the wall and palmed the back of his hat. **The wall likewise vanished.**

"Just what _is_ your power?" MUSE asked.

"Such a mystery" the man said. "In time, you shall learn to truth of power, my dear. Until then, be glad for what you have, for it is a power unlike anything I've seen. It's potential, still so safely secured within your destructive id, it is simply remarkable. **Use it well. Aim for the heavens. There shall be nothing out of your grasp, young miss!**" From the voided hole in the wall a small cart suddenly appeared along an electric track. MUSE turned to ask the man something else but he, the room she sat in, and very well any trace that it hadn't all been some grand fever dream aside from the newly opened path, were all gone.

"He is certainly useful" MUSE said. She walked through the ancient cell, stepped through a dust-covered human body which caved in and let out a howling escape of century-old gaseous air, and apathetically boarded the cramped cart with a stroke of her hair. "I must make note of him for the future. **He can serve me well...**" The cart started moving of its own will and began rocketing through a narrow, pitch-dark passage. MUSE summoned her Stand in front of the cart to take its arms into the forms of writhing tentacles and clear the way with a myriad of quick and derisive jabs into the environment that blindly imposed her.

The route she took went straight through the project neighborhood she had entered to meet with her mysterious aid and went straight for a distant but well-acclaimed location. A structure whose foundation still stood from the first time it was ever built, far back when even that dungeon she exited had life within it. The cart route was one that was burned into the city's routes as a sewage flow and one not to be tampered with. It ran under every major infrastructure of the city's outer edges, the foundations of several banks and high-rise apartment projects, a snaking clandestine tunnel that led to the catacombs of a church near the city's public gang-ridden park. MUSE knew not where she was going or at all how it would help her, but somehow she managed to grin in the total darkness that her Stand cleared for her. Somehow even the distrustful nature of that strange, dark man seemed irrelevant to all he had told her. Despite his obvious suspicion she trusted him and his praising words as she blindly advanced to her goal....

Up above the ground, accelerating through the streets with the direction of a lost pet, Monkey Business was already making his way for the city again with the beacon safely in his hands. His faithful friendly fiend, Dio Brando, had yet to be summoned to any particular point because Starski was fighting an inconsequential foe while the strongest nearby force had already moved out of reach. Now MB was following the second largest presence with the aid of his Stand DAGON which aimed one of its thin human arms in a constant direction like a compass while its fish-head prayed.

MB, being the intelligent creature it was, the product of science that superseded present human understanding, MB realized that his tiny limbs would not do to carry him as quickly as he needed to keep up with that retreating presence. He quickly located the nearest means of possible conveyance, a car, and dejected it for not being easier to use. Then he saw in the trashy growths of a grassy yard a skateboard and stole it. Now he was swift. He pushed with his clawed arms on the asphalt of the road while sitting down plainly on the board. DAGON hovered ever above him, guiding his spirit in the direction of the greatest current power. MB had fashioned a thrown-away handkerchief into a satchel around his back so his signaling phone would be safe to stay with him. Now the monkey was on the move to follow what he didn't even know to truly be the sole target he and Dio searched for...

* * *

The Frozen Nights moved out through the streets. What roads were blocked they moved through alleys. Where police were vigilant they rerouted. Where the public casting of suspicion on their spray-painted vans was raised they were quick to lower suspicion with each driver visible beyond the low-tinted window wearing shades and a black suit, posing as Federal officers of even greater enforcement while a well-armed militia of madmen rode on in the back.

Rosalisa was in the car that had gone the farthest into the city. She in the passenger side of a sporty civilian red _Honda_ with several guards in the back and two in the spacious trunk armed and ready to immediately move out. Her driver was a pale and unmasked guard with a shaved head posing as a cancer patient. In her Gothic attire Rosalisa hadn't bothered to hide her own suspicious appearance. She merely insisted that they drive on so as not to displease their lord.

And that man, so caught up in the raw passions of youth that the concerns of humanity to him were like laughable jokes, flew through the air in the sky as a star that screamed across the heavens. A black star, invisible to eyes, a long figure breezing through the evening air and the only man still in sight of the sun that had set behind the rolling mountainous horizon.

"Keep me high, SoaD" Dio said. His black wings were unfolded and a ribcage brace of claws was wrapped around his chest, the perfect form of free flight. "We'll come back down again when it's time to judge the lesser men..." And so Dio patrolled on his own, using only his arcane senses to sniff out his prey, the fang-mouthed head of his Stand accompanying him with its crown of eyes. "Wherever you are, you intolerable cunt, I shall find you and **tear you apart!**" SoaD shook with excitement and reeled its spiked head up to the dark night sky with a shrill, nightmarish cry.

_**WRAAAAAAAAAAIIIII!!!!!**_ Dio's smirk increased to a toothy smile. Hidden in the broad pockets of his mask was an object that he drew out. Feeling overwhelmed with a rush of excitement, of murderous anticipation, Dio equipped his sacred artifact and flapped his great wings to ascend his body vertically to the sky. **His face was covered by the Stone Mask. His arms reached up to the Gods, to pluck the stars down, and his eyes went mad.**

"_**WRYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!"**_ The cry of humanity's threat went through the city and shook fear into many hearts. Of them, MUSE was not one. Still he flew, in search of the girl, to kill her and frame her head on his wall...


	50. Coldplay 3 & Disturbed 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Even though the cold air chilled his knuckles and made them white, his breathing brought a bright flush of color back to his body while the pale avatar waited out of sight in the shadows of his will. In the battle stood Jonathan Joestar, the illuminated hero-figure of many, a powerful young man with a punch to break both bones and barriers and a will to foster both the scorn of evil and the best intents of all men. He stood, handsome as always, short dark-brown hair swaying on top of his head, with disassembled guns as tonfa in his hands, fighting against an enemy he barely knew to fight.

"Welcome" Brad said. "What was holding you back?"

"Her, obviously" Jojo said. "Your arms cold?"

"Numb" Brad said, looking between them and Astella in scorn. The woman pushed herself from the ice with some thin, moist flakes of flesh sticking to the ice gone unnoticed by the brutish woman. The wounds of her skin were neatly sealed shut with ice and she didn't bleed. Even the blood on her face cracked as she grinned and broke from its frozen form to fall down as red shards to the ground.

"We're in position, sir" a troop reported. "Enemy is flanked. Shall we shoot suppressing fire?"

"Wait for my signal" REO said as he moved from the battle and into cover in the next yard over. He vaulted over the fence and landed with a knee to the ground to observe at a distance. "This is a Stand user we're dealing with. We need to be careful, at least inasmuch so that Brad and Jojo can fight unimpeded."

"Roger" the soldier said. "Standing down in position until further orders." REO nodded and observed from the safe distance what his two friends would do to continue the fight.

_Don't be too foolish, Jojo_ REO thought. He felt something warm near his knee on the ground and looked down to see himself kneeling in dog crap. He was immediately enraged and hopped up to his feet with the knee held out to keep the shit away from him as much as he could while he tried to scrape it off on the yard fence.

"Give me your arm" Jojo said. He took Brad's armored limb and breathed ripples of warming, healing light into them. The aura of life resonated from Jojo into Brad and healed his arms to regain feeling like normal. He gripped his fingers without pain and with full feeling, then summoned Linkin Park to his side while Jojo took up a loose and mobile stance beside him. "We can't touch her or her Stand without getting frozen. What's the plan?"

"Beat her shitless?" Brad asked. Jojo shot him a glance and then let him move a step away to get himself into position. "That's all I'm thinking of right now. What's your brilliant plan?" Astella gave them little time to plan. She used her Stand Coldplay to freeze the grass, grabbed a handful of the iced shards and took in a deep breath. Jojo stood on guard and Brad brought Linkin Park's arms up to protect his face while he stayed confident in the rest of his bodysuit. Astella blew the shards into the air creating a thin screen while she likewise used Coldplay to sap the moisture from the ice wall next to her. Jojo ran forward immediately and burst through the cloud of frozen dust. Coldplay attacked him with a punch. With his mind stimulated and his body accelerated with the heat of the Sun Ripple, Jojo blocked the attack with his plastic tonfa and pushed through it to strike Astella in the side with a quick weapon jab.

"Very nice!" Astella exclaimed, biting her lip from the pain. She swung her fist into Jojo's already blocking shoulder and disabled his block. Coldplay made a swift, deathly clutch for his throat but met a different entity. Astella cocked her brow when she gazed harder, **the echo image of a throat overlapping Jojo's throat had blocked Coldplay's grip.** Then out it came, hovering forward with legs curled up until it stomped its feet to the ground and counter attacked quicker than possible. Astella felt the full force of a punch to her gut, her chest, her face and an open-palm smash against her heart, crushing her breast and incurring her with incredible pain and force that forced her backwards and over herself. Jojo stood amidst a silent mist, alone, with his arms crossed across his chest, and swung them out to stretch them out after the beating he had taken.

_The World_ he thought. _Thank you, though I'm sure that wasn't an altruistic act on your part. I still need to attack, but I'm not completely alone in this fight._

"Brad!" Jojo called. Brad was gone. He was already on the offensive. He had taken a wide circle around the ice wall, skating through the grass as if it were a blacktop street with the wheels of his Stand, gathering energy with something held in his hand. Astella managed to rise up and summon her Stand just as Brad came speeding in with his leg held back for a kick.

"Useless little fuck!" Astella shouted. She brought Coldplay to block the kick and caught Linkin Park's leg in its freezing clutch. Still, Linkin Park's sheer force powered through Coldplay's grip and shattered the ice around its hand. The flesh of Astella's matching hand swelled red and then burst in open cuts with blood. She shouted and shot up imbalanced to her feet, taking a lean against the nearby barrier to set herself upright while Brad stood before her, a smirk on his face and something in his hand.

Using a constant wrist motion, Brad spun a compact, high-tension gyro device with a rotating ball inside a grippable frame that provided constant friction and force. A training tool for strengthening the muscles of the wrist and forearm, now implemented by a Stand user to constantly accrue force within his body, stored in his Stand with wheels accelerating slowly and form lighting up in brief flashes.

"There must be limits to your power" Brad said "but not mine. So long as force goes against force, so long as friction is created or contested, as long as there is motion in the universe **my power will dominate the physical plane! It's the power of **_**pure movement!!!**_" With that it mind, Brad threw his gyro up into the air, completely static and unmoving, giving a sudden burst to Linkin Park's spinning wheels. The wheel of its left palm popped up across all its knuckles and gathered all the energy its body held. Astella tried to block with Coldplay's armored arm but against pure force it wasn't enough. Her Stand's arm was cracked and broken all through, likewise was her own forearm bone cracked and displaced, the muscles forced to ripple with tremendous force and some even breaking from the incredulous attack. The gyro returned to Brad's hand and his Stand departed as he backed up slowly. Astella breathed hard as she stood up, her only working hand covered in wet blood which froze against the barricade she touched, her rage so tunneled to the arrogant Brad that Jojo's flight toward her went ignored.

"Haaaaaahhhh!!!!" Jojo roared, charging up his own powerful fury as he made a running attack. Astella turned to him with a start and summoned her Stand. Jojo took a leap through the air and turned as he flew, boots first, for a mighty drop-kick through her Stand's body, charged with life and the Sun's Ripple, all the knock-out power accompanied by a loud and forceful **"ORA!!!"** Astella's body was pushed against the barrier and flipped over onto the grass behind it. Her Stand disappeared. She was effectively out of commission and Jojo was helped up by Brad, though the boy could do little other than try not to fall under Jojo's own muscular weight.

"_Bon, mes amis!_" Brad said. "Very well done. I am impressed, to say the least!"

"Really?" Jojo asked while controlling his breathing. "Would a man who 'dominates the physical plane' really be impressed by force so basic and unplanned?" Brad took a modest appearance and stood with his legs together and arms folded behind his head at Jojo's words. He smiled wide and tried to hide his shamed honor for his ungraceful words while Jojo just smirked at him.

"Hey, it was teamwork!" Brad finally said. "I distracted her while you attacked. It's all part of the plan, man!"

"Heh" Jojo scoffed amusingly as he dropped his tonfa. "Of course it was. You're a genius, after all."

"Well, at parkour" Brad said shamelessly.

* * *

Meanwhile in the urban jungle, in the rising build of poverty and grief where humans lived to little or no end, Starski continued to flee while his pursuer continued to hunt for him. The halls were empty but the residents stayed at their doors with bats and knives and some with guns, prepared to defend themselves against what they expected to be a wholly routine invasive force stomping through their halls with the intent to either murder or steal.

Then the ghostly figure passed by their doors and they retreated at once, some with panicked cries of terror, most silently to keep the predator's tracking away from them. The man in the smiling hard leather mask still stalked after Starski, following the scent of his vanished trail of blood to the roof...

Starski bust down the door and reemerged on the same roof he had just been on not long before and crawled his way hurriedly with his hands and good leg to try and find cover. There were already men up on the roof inspecting the damage and when white-clothed Starski emerged they turned to him in an instant.

"Look at this fool" one of the older men said. "Looks like he's been jogging too much." The other men laughed and one younger man, wearing a grease-stained wifebeater and a gold chain around his neck, moved forward with a smirk.

"What happened, cuz?" he asked. Starski stood up as best he could, his breath escaped from him, and moved his arms as if to try and muster up the words he wanted to speak.

"There's a crazy-ass guy" Starski explained in a rush "coming up here trying to kill me!"

"Yo, what!?" another man exclaimed.

"You ain't in any gang, are you?" the grease-shirted man said. Starski had to rest and summoned the leg of his Stand to prop him up so he could keep his ankle off the ground.

"No" Starski lied. "Listen, you all need to get out of sight. This bitch is beyond mad. He's all kinds of crazy and all of them bad. And he can smell like a damn police dog. He's coming up for me but I know his ass wouldn't mind spraying more blood than it should just for the shits and giggles, so make yourself scarce ASAP."

"Well what about you?" the man asked. Starski turned to the city horizon and summoned the rest of his Stand. Run DMC was weakened but active, and its intake whined with a very slow intake of air, still cool and slowed from the inactivity of stasis. "You said he can smell? How're you gonna stay alive if he can smell you?" Starski glanced back. He ran forward, ignoring the pain of his injured ankle at least for a bit, and took a flying leap off the side of the building. "YO!!!" the man called. The door of the roof was kicked down and into the open stalked the white-skinned, black-garbed man with thick strings of hair hanging down from the back of his mask.

"What the fuck!?" one of the men exclaimed. "Is this the guy? What kind of shit is this!?" The evil lowed, still following after Starski, and then heard the dullest and lowest blast of air as Starski exerted all his available force onto the ground to land without a scratch. He stood himself up and hobbled over to a streetlight to balance himself, not noticing the occupied taxi he had landed next to and the terrified driver behind the wheel. Starski rose up his hand and grinned.

"You go downtown, my man?" he asked. His stalker came to the edge of the roof and looked down, seeing its prey enter a yellow car that sped quickly away. He growled and held out his hand. **Thick black tendrils broke from out of his fingernails and made claws of his fingers.** He used them to crawl down the side of the building, piercing holes through the brick wall and plaster, and reached the ground in no time. Tentacles came from the cracks of his shoulder's skin and reached for a mailbox, bending it into a twisted pile of metal and ripping it open like an aluminum can. He lowed and retracted all his black growths. His fingernails folded back into place, bleach white as they were pulled back into the flesh of his finger by tiny black ropes reaching just up to the cuticles. He growled and began sprinting, making heavy stomps in his heavy boots, while the men on the roof observed in a passive awe. Finally, the eldest one spoke up.

"This world is straight-up fucked" he said. "In my day this town didn't have no damn leatherface freak it just had cops with hoses. Those were monsters, man." Of course, no one was listening to him now. They were awestruck by whatever it was they saw. The man went sprinting faster and faster to catch up to the dangerously speeding cab. Starski looked back and saw him coming, even in the blackout darkness of the streets.

"You mind going a little faster?" Starski asked. "I need to be somewhere really fast."

"Uhh" the nervous cabby groaned in confusion. "I, uh, don't wanna get pulled over or anything."

"Well don't worry" Starski said. "I'm sure if we get pulled over the cop would die before either of us."

"How's that?" the cabbie asked, making a nervous reach for his hidden pistol. He looked down, away from the road for a split second, and saw that his gun was gone. Starski had already stolen it and checked it in his hand as he prepared to fight.

"This guy's nuts" Starski said. "He'll kill anything walking to get to me, so drive. Go wherever. Keep to empty streets. Just don't let him catch up to us!"

"Okay!" the cabbie exclaimed. "Alright! Alright! You think you can get us out of this alive?"

"Sure" Starski said. "Sure I think that. It'd be a bitch if I thought something else, wouldn't it? A pessimistic savior would be the worst thing you'd come across today." Starski opened the cab door and leaned out, his good leg hooked on the locked seatbelt of the seat next to him. He aimed down the street, seeing nothing, and quickly shut the door while rising back up. When he sat back up in his seat he saw the mad man already running with the speed of the taxi beside it and growling. Starski glanced at the odometer and read the speed as an excess of nearly fifty miles and hour down a straight street.

_What the fuck!?_ Starski exclaimed. _What is his power. Those things in his body, those big black tentacles things, what the hell do they do!?_ The man wound an arm around his chest and swung it at the cab. Several thick tentacles smashed into the side of the car and knocked it into a brief unguidable screeching.

"GAAAAHHH!!!" the cabbie screamed. Starski left no time for the man to attack again. He shot through the window and slowed him down by piercing a bullet through his shoulder. The man slowed down to look at the glancing wound while Starski moved to the broken window. He cleared the sharp remaining glass by scraping it away with the gun barrel and leaned out of the window. He fire twice more, this time closer to the man's broad, muscular stomach, and hit another glancing blow off the man's steel-hard muscles through his skin. His blood was red, that was clear, **but under his skin it was all black and writhing. His body was supported by the continuous network of black tentacles!**

"What the fuck kind of power is that!?" Starski exclaimed. The man took in a deep breath as he ran and roared powerfully, little feelers of black wriggling in his mouth as tongues.

"**HHRAAAAAAAGHHH!!!!!"** His Stand is 'The Sickness'. His name is _**Disturbed.**_ He only knows how to destroy, no part of him knows peace. He is a nearly perfect assassin with an unstoppable power, a nigh-unshakable dog that chases his prey off the edge of sanity and disposes of their useless physical bodies at his own twisted whim. He is a monster under the will of a demonic force occupying his body, a Stand user more Stand than man....

* * *

Now with the first major signaled user under the powerful beams of green suppressant light, REO and his company moved out while tracking the unusual spikes in Stand energy all throughout the city. There was the huge blip where they were, one that left a trail through the streets and into the city, two smaller ones now rapidly on the move and an unregistered signature that wasn't on any of the maps available. Jojo looked over all the dots on the map and their calculated speeds as they stayed static, waiting for the next radar sweep to change their positions.

_No_ Jojo thought. _None of them are Dio. I just know it, he's somewhere else, suppressing his power, waiting to spring some kind of trap!_ Jojo wanted to turn to REO to voice his concern but the caravan was ready to move and he was jarred by the quick jerk almost out of his seat.

"Buckle up, Jojo" REO said. Jojo nodded and latched himself in place as the heavy military vehicles began speeding towards the park between the suburb slums and the high-rise projects. REO was scathingly staring at his knee, which still seemed to stink even though he had completely cleaned it off, while Jojo just sat in distant and uninterested thought.

"Where could he be?" Jojo wondered aloud.

"You say something?" REO asked. Jojo turned to him.

"I was just wonder" Jojo said "what roles we're playing right now. Currently, we have this renegade Stand user who wanted to fight for seemingly no reason, and now multiple mobile Stand signatures. I just have to wonder, what is this all about? Was the Synchronicity Event planned or simply coincidental? And just how many forces are really moving into action right now? There's us, the selfish peacekeeper; Dio, the lawless renegade; and then one other force we haven't quite yet linked to everything else."

"It's nothing but an overinflated gang war, Jojo" REO said. "We've been in scrapes like this before, but this one is much more dangerous and potentially disastrous not only to us but to everyone in the city. I know it's a pretty big burden to bear, but think about what we're doing here. The fate of the city is pretty much with us right now, the REO special Stand forces."

"Of course" Jojo said. "REO, just how long has this force been in training?" REO stayed silent. He stared forward for a broad moment and then sighed as he looked away.

"I can't answer you that, Jojo" REO said. "You know how it is..." Jojo was surprised to hear his friend so adamantly holding a secret against him. REO was never the type of man to let something be withheld for too long, not as long as Jojo had known him. Jojo just grit his teeth and tried to hold back his anger but even The World could feel the tension rising in him. The soldier sitting next to him placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a nod. Jojo was somehow instantly calm and turned around to simply stare off and away from his friend. REO saw Jojo's strayed stare and tilted down the brim of his hat.

"Transport" the driver called over the radio, contacting the vehicle moving in front of them that held their captive Stand user. "Transport, you are slowing down. Report." No response. The soldier immediately leaned forward to listen. Jojo was more intent than the others and unfastened himself from the seat just as the vehicle began to slow. "Transport, respond immediately."

"Shit" REO cursed. He threw off his seatbelts and latching bar lock and ran up to the front where Jojo had also gone. "Contact a code red on the Transport" REO ordered. The driver nodded. "Don't worry, Jojo. Erina's MedBay is under guard as well, and it went in the other direction." Jojo nodded. The worry had only come over him after it had been brought up by his friend anyway.

"All nearby units" the driver called "we have a code red in Transport 3 containing the Stand user. Possible break-out could occur. Stand by for further orders."

"Someone man the turret!" REO called. The soldier from Jojo's side was already on it, harnessing himself into the straps that rose him up into position behind the mounted heavy machine gun. He was elevated by pistons in the machinery of the vehicles roof to get a better aim at the vehicle in front. The other soldiers prepared to move out when the transport stopped and the rear door opened.

"Look" Jojo said, pointing to the rear door of the vehicle. A slight steam was hissing out. "We should evade, it could open!"

"Right" REO agreed. "Take evasive action. Get away from its rear."

"Roger" the soldier said. He steered away and accelerated to get up beside it. Just as Jojo thought the door flew open and not only an icy mist but a mass of frozen objects, including the suppressant lights, clattered out and into the open street.

"Shit" REO cursed. "That's money wasted."

"She must be driving!" Jojo realized.

"Shoot to kill!" REO shouted to the gunner up top. He took careful aim for the front cabin of the huge, thick transport and prepared to fire. The renegade transport had been sealed from within by a coating of ice that covered and veiled all the windows, preventing Astella from being plainly seen. Jojo knew she was there. He could feel the heat of a living being in the middle of that cold metal hull. The vehicle swerved and slammed into the manned transport that aimed it down. All the soldiers braced the impact except Jojo and REO, who fell back into the passenger door. It stayed locked, however.

"Shit!" REO shouted. "Maybe I can use Trapt somehow!"

"She could break it" Jojo said "if her Stand gets a hold of it."

"You're right" REO said. The vehicle parted and traveled parallel down a narrow street until a turn came up. Astella took her hijacked vehicle down another road away from the manned transport just as the gunner opened fire and blasted steaming hot holes into the inside of the vehicle. He couldn't reach through the thick military hull to the driver and the distance quickly grew between them.

"This is Transit 5" a driver called over the radio. "We are in position to intercept the enemy vehicle. Treating as hostile target." Jojo heard gunfire open and tried to move to the back of the transport again.

"Transit 5" REO responded, "don't just assume the enemy will stay on the road. Be prepared for emergency interception maneuvers."

"Roger" the driver confirmed. A second later, "Enemy has changed course! Enemy has driven into an occupied house! Intercepting!" Outside the hostile transport had powered its way through the corner of a small, single-level house and continued on to ram into the side of the intercepting transport. It was effectively stopped, its engine compartment at the front already smoking and steaming from the freezing air and all the parts frosted with ice. "Move out!" the driver shouted to the soldiers. Among them was Brad, who led the men outside and around to the back of the transport.

"Shoot to kill!" Brad ordered. The soldiers formed a close line and aimed inside the transport. Even through they could plainly see back to where the driver sat, **they didn't see their target. The transport was totally empty!** "The house!" Brad shouted. They turned their sight onto the house she had driven through and saw the rest of the corner of the roof fall down. From the far end of the house the single man living within escaped on foot and lights began turning on in the neighboring homes.

"We're going ahead" REO said. "Brad and Mr. Network will stay behind to deal with the enemy in case she's still active. You have permission to use lethal force!"

"Roger" Brad confirmed. Then he paused and reopened a brief communication. "Who the hell's Mr. Network?"

"This is Transit 6" called a gruff man's voice. "I'll be there in 2, already turned around at first signs of distress. Hold ground until I get there..."

"Uh, Roger" Brad said. "Jojo, REO, good luck to you two."

"Thanks Brad" REO said. "Over and out." Now the night air was cool and ominous. With reinforcements on the way, Brad just had to hold out against a witch with lethal power, aided by the company of troops around him. Their weapons, they knew, were useless and their power against her limited. The forces all moved at once, converging and diverging, spreading and covering, dividing and conquering. He who stood last would be the first to conquer the night.


	51. Coldplay 4 & Disturbed 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

A police blockade was dissolving. The injured were everywhere. A citywide panic had been tamed by the quick actions of the police force and was now quelled into a widespread submission of fear. It seemed that the citizens were at rest and those in need of treatment were being taken as quickly as possible to all the operating hospitals. Generous doctors gave their homes in the suburbs as clinics for the time being, and even more trained men from all branches of service offered their aid and their property to help steady the city's crippling.

Just as the last cops were ready to leave a distressing upset came screeching around the corner. The cab carrying Starski drifted unintentionally onto the sidewalk and stopped just short of hitting a streetlight on the curb. The cabbie, in a great state of distress, fled from the car and left it running. Starski exited and shouted after him.

"Yo!" he called, "Where'r you going!?"

"Forget it!" the driver called. "I'm not driving with that _thing_ after me! You can just kill it your own damn self!"

"How'm I supposed to drive and shoot at the same time!?" Starski shouted. "Coward!"

"Hey!" one of the policemen said. Starski himself surrounded by at least four officers and saw three cars still blocking the street. "What's going on here!?"

"I've got a man chasing me" Starski reported "with intent to kill. In the course of defending myself that cab car was damaged, and now my driver bailed on me."

"Woah, slow it down" the cop said. "Who's after you?"

"**HHRAAAAAGHH!!!!"** cried Disturbed. He came around the corner with the tentacles forming talons from his feet. His toes were pushed up to make room for the hooking black tendrils as they dug into the concrete road and slowed him in his exceedingly fast sprint. Once he stopped he started to charge all over again with hooks of black protruding all over his chalk-white skin, looking like a many-spined monster.

"Shit!" Starski exclaimed. "That's him!"

"What is it?" the questioning cop asked.

"Kill it!" the other cops called. They opened fire and stalled Disturbed, sending him into a stagger as bullets grazed and ricocheted off of his adamant black tentacles. One bullet clipped the throat of the officer near Starski and sent him down with his neck clutched in his hand to catch the blood from pouring out.

"Dammit!" Starski lowed. "This ain't how a fight should go down! Haven't you ever heard of discretion!?" Starski fired the last bullets in the revolver and hit, both times, into the man's iron-reinforced black mask. The leathery grin grew wide as the man opened his mouth from behind it and started to breath violently.

"What the fuck!?" a female cop exclaimed. "We shot it at least a dozen times and he's not dead!?"

"He's not even hurt!" another male officer proclaimed. "What the hell is that? What's under his skin there!?"

"It's a damn mystery" Starski said. He threw away his gun and summoned his Stand, unseen but felt by the normal officers near him. "Listen, just go! He's after me! I'll try and lure him away from where anybody is! You send out a report to kill this bastard. Don't waste time apprehending, this is the kind of dude you can't just take-down!"

"Uh, okay!" the female said. "We'll leave this up to you, if you're certain." The injured officer was recovered and his neck wound wrapped as he was taken to a car. The sirens startled Disturbed and enticed him, shifting his whole focus to them as the cars peeled off and sped away.

_I may be hurt_ Starski thought _but I can still fight! I'll give it all that I can!_ Run DMC, fatigued though it was, had recovered enough from its previous actions to gather the energy for a strong blast of air. It compressed it within its winding turbine arm and punched forward a cannon of air. Disturbed was hit and sent into the side of a wall, then bouncing back off and rolling into the street. With its senses fixed back on the battle, Disturbed picked itself up and shook its head with a growl. The tendrils poked out from the surface of his skin and became hard, like spines, again equipping him with an unnatural natural weapon of destruction.

Starski, however, was already on the run, taking to the streets as fast as he could. He bolted down the sidewalk until he spotted an abandoned moped with keys still in the ignition. "It's faster than running on a broken foot!" Starski realized. He jumped to the moped, turned the key and cranked the handlebar as quick as he could to speed away. As he swerved into the open and empty street, The Sickness attacked and missed, piercing long-reaching black tentacles into the road just behind Starski's vehicle.

"How do I put this thing into neutral!?" Starski shouted. He looked around on what looked like a panel for the controls but found neither gears nor switches to release the brake and throttle from the bike. He was stuck going forward on the gas-powered mini-bike at the speed it was set to for now. "Damn. Run DMC's not totally up to par yet, but it's working enough to hurry me up! I've gotta get some ground from that son of a bitch before I try and fight him again..." _But more importantly_ Starski thought, saving his breath, _I need to figure out a way to defeat him. I'm not doing it with brute force, that's for sure._

Disturbed was up and running again, though in a stagger that forced it in no direction forward for long. It swayed to the right and hit against a car, then to the left and tumbled over itself onto the road. The man behind the mask panted and wheezed desperately while his body twitched and forced itself around. A dissonance was occurring within his mind, and the user was becoming detached from his perpetually active Stand. Disturbed ran into a car and set off the alarm, which he stared at for a brief moment before he silenced it with a shooting web of solid tentacles into the front dash. With the car basically broken he ripped out a coil of wires and knotted plastic to throw onto the ground, then returned all the tentacles back into his body. The pain subsided, Disturbed looked at his hands and clutched them tight. From out of the cracks in his chalk-white skin the tentacles squirmed like worms to the surface and wriggled in the air all over his arms.

This sent him to giggling. His chest jerked as he breathed in and out rapidly with his jovial, lifted mood of laughter and degraded to a mad, feverish cackling void of sanity or human voice. **"HHHAAHHHAHHAHHAHHHAAA!!!"** Loud breathing with noise in the fashion of laughter. This creature didn't know what laughter was...

* * *

The wreckage was still falling and everything was turning cold. Astella was already using her substantial power to create an environment where she could fight against the overwhelming odds. Brad stood just outside of the ruin with a force behind him, ready to start firing on little more than the wave of his wrist. Two men equipped high-ballistic fragmentation grenades to the launcher under the barrel of their assault rifles.

"Hold" Brad said. He was planning. _My Stand's basically at a final....stand. I can't fight much further with it. If it comes down to a Stand battle, that other guy's gonna have to take care of it. I need to wait for him.....what kind of name is Mr. Network, anyway? Sounds stupid. I feel like I can already predict what his ability is going to be, something with computers, I bet._

A transport pulled up and blocked the road. Out of the driver-side door stepped a man in identical armor with a Kevlar Fedora bound with a silk white scarf. The mafioso man stepped into the open, known only by his codename Mr. Network, and walked to the line of soldier Brad commanded, carrying no one else with him.

"Where's our backup?" Brad asked.

"Right here" Mr. Network replied. "Got a problem with that...?" The lenient lull of threat was just enough for the young Brad to get a rough estimate of just how powerful this man was. Brad shook his head and invited his companion to the front line with him. Mr. Network brushed the tip of his finger across the brim of his hat and snapped his finger out in front of his face. "Shall we fight?"

"Wait a sec" Brad said. "Do you know what we're going up against? It's ice! She can freeze anything solid, even an _explosion!_ It won't matter what you can do, as long as it's heat based she can fight against it."

"I know everything worth knowing" Mr. Network said. "She can only freeze what contains water to remove. Of course there's water in the air, but that too, is a part of my power. Come on, _**Electric Hellfire!**_" He snapped his finger again and, instantly, summoned up a whip of pure crackling electricity. "This is my Stand, _Electric Hellfire_. At least, through training, this is it's combat form. Stand and Fight."

"I'm not sure what to say to that" Brad admitted. "I...really, I don't know. That seems pretty cheap to me."

"It's still a whip" Mr. Network admitted "and it's hard to control, but it's a much better form for my Stand to take for fighting. Normally, it's actual Stand form is ineffective in any fight. It's meant to gather information remotely, not play fisticuffs. And, being pure electricity, it can zap me as well as any other person, so I have to be extremely careful with it."

"I heard" a coy voice said. Brad and Network glanced down quickly and saw the ground begin to bulge. From right under their feet Astella popped up and threw out her thick arms as she surface from under frosty, clumping dirt and grass. "I heard it all!"

"Then die!" Network shouted. He jumped away and swung the whip at her. Her Stand came out and caught it, its frozen hand unaffected by the surging electric power, and yanked it. Network tugged back, and a stand-off ensued.

"Now!" Brad shouted. Astella became aware again of her surroundings and saw herself completely surrounded by soldiers, all ready to fire. "Kill her!" The troops opened fire on her body. Just as the order passed she fell back under the ground, enduring no damage. "Shoot through the dirt! She's freezing it to move through it easier!" The soldiers obeyed and fired randomly all around the hole. Coldplay disappeared and ended the holding match with Network. The whip returned to his side and started scalding the dirt it rested in a coil on.

"Good job" Network said "assessing the enemy's method. However, it's pointless if we don't know her target."

"I think I know" Brad said. He summoned Linkin Park, from the ankles down, and felt the motion of the ground. He felt the earth moving under the hard, frozen grass and fragile plate of dusty dirt beneath it. _It's me!_ Brad jumped out of the way and flew backwards in a wild jump, unintentionally powered by his Stand. Astella reached up from under the grass and grabbed at him, missing completely and holding a fist in the air.

_I missed!?_ She thought.

"Open" Network said. He lashed his whip into her back. The jolt of pain was jarring enough to stun her into submission completely. The shock of pure electricity applied to her back forced her Stand out reflexively and froze her in a solid block of ice. Her body was stayed in a perfect state, the look of pain and anger held in the ice on her face.

"That's that" Network said, disengaging his whip by letting it go and disappear into the air. "Now, if we break this, the problem shall be resolved in an instant."

"Well" Brad began, "I think that's an exaggeration."

"Detonate this block of ice!" Network ordered.

"Hey! Pay attention!" Brad demanded. A grenade launcher was fired and the ice block exploded. Network took cover with his head held down and his battle-suit blocking the flying blows of shrapnel. Astella was freed but still stunned and not expecting another attack to follow so quickly. Brad let all the thicker shards hit him and Linkin Park absorbed the force and damage. He blocked the sharper ones with the butt of his gun and protected his face, though his hat was inconsequentially damaged. Astella slammed her hands to the ground and took labored breaths.

_That wasn't_ she thought _what I wanted to do...!_

"Still alive, eh?" Network said. He snapped his fingers to a rhythm and began a shuffle-step sort of dance. He leaned to the side, snapped his fingers and then leaned to the other side while taking a short, sliding step. He repeated, bobbing back and forth, snapping and snapping, until the soldiers started stepping to it as well. Astella looked up and saw Brad snapping along as if on reflex.

"You feel that electricity in the air?" Mr. Network asked. He was standing at the edge of Astella's burrow and forced her to react. She crawled up onto solid ground and summoned her Stand. Network stopped snapping.

"**BOOYAH!!!"** Brad exclaimed from behind. Astella summoned her stand and felt something tap at the base of her spine. "This'll fuck you up, bitch!" Linkin Park drew back both its hands, the wheels grinning together with all its stored force, and blasted forward with palms open just as Brad removed his finger from her body.

_NO!!!_ Astella jerked quickly to the side. She saved herself by inches from a spine-breaking blow. Coldplay counter attacked with a rotating ax-kick into Linkin Park's block, chilling the Stand with its frightening power and driving down harder and harder into Brad's fighting arm. The boy just stood, his arms getting cold and dry underneath the cover of his battle bodysuit, and looked past Astella who held onto her side in pain. The crack of an electric whip stirred up a frenzy in her.

"Don't you fuck with me!" she shouted. She stepped forward and threw a punch at the man. He swayed to the side and snapped his other finger, flicking the wrist his Stand whip extended from and cracking it with a static jolt against the ground. He flicked up his arm and very slowly the electric string began encircling the woman's thick arm.

"It's all in the song" Network said. "We all have one to play inside us. My soul plays jazz. **Yours must play something sick.**" The whip snared onto her exposed arm and quickly sent a stunning wave of electricity through her body. She resisted at first, the pain mainly located to the pulsing blasts she experienced within her arm, and drew forward. Brad circled around and swung his gun down like a club, smashing her in the forehead with the butt of the gun. Coupled with the constant surging of electric energy into her body, she was quickly knocked out. Mr. Network withdrew his power and sighed. He took off his hat and held it out to Brad, who looked at it and then back to the slick-haired gentlemen before him.

"You're a powerful guy" Mr. Network said. "I appreciate only those with power. Go ahead and take a favor. I'll owe it to you anytime." Brad looked back down into the hat and saw candies, tiny peppermint chunks rolled up in delicate plastic. He took one and Mr. Network placed the hat back on his head. "They don't fall out because my hat is normally charged with enough static to cling the plastic to its top like glue. If that's what you were wondering..." Brad pocketed the candy, having dealt enough with icy sensations, confirmed by his downward sigh to Astella. The soldiers moved quickly to gather her up while Brad and his fellow Stand user returned to their transports to continue on their mission after REO and Jojo.

_All Stand users_ Brad thought _must be strange and eccentric people. Ce la vie._ Brad hopped into the transport and pumped his arm with a clenched fist. Regardless how confused he was, he still knew that it was technically his victory...

* * *

As REO's transport moved into the city limits, the damage they had left unattended became obvious. There were accident scenes still freshly marked down from people being rendered unconscious while driving. Some outlines were in the middle of the street, with no attempt to close them off completely, and the transport ran over the white lines without regard.

"This is....." Jojo said, unable to find words to suit his disgust and upset over what he was seeing.

"It's an epidemic" REO said. "With any synchronicity event there tend to be innocent bystanders in statistics but, well, for a city even this is a gross amount of casualties. It's likely that there are still many homes where whole families have passed out, or that many utilities are out of service. The lights are still working, though." REO noticed the distress of ever-worrying Jojo who, in his good nature, was unable to ignore the obvious suffering happening all around him. People were dead, injured, or at least scared. REO tried to remedy the situation that he found himself in. "Well, the best we can do is track down the source and get it under control before another tremendous spike occurs. Jojo, has the radar pinged yet?"

"Huh?" Jojo said, snapping out of his dismal focus. He turned to the machines reading the pulses of Stand energy from all the secret corners of the city and saw something interesting. Two major outlets of power were within distance of each other. One was a block away from the park two and a half miles uptown from the transport's current position, while the other was nearer to the park and seemed to have traveled from the house the soldiers initially raided and where they fought Astella. The other signatures were of Brad and Mr. Network, still in the same area, with Astella's faded down to a faint blip. Then there were two that had moved rapidly into a low-density area of the uptown district.

"We've got lots of action" Jojo said. "First of all, the source we're tracking seems to be at the park, Roads Memorial, and another one is nearby and closing in."

"You thinking the same thing?" REO asked.

"Of course" Jojo said. "Dio's intuition _would_ lead him there before us."

"That devil has all the wrong kind of luck" REO said "considering what kind of a man he is."

"We need to get to the park immediately" Jojo ordered. "Take a left and keep going straight! I'll direct you from where we are!"

"Hold on, Jojo" REO said. "We need to prioritize a little better."

"There's no time!" Jojo exclaimed. He grabbed REO by the sleeves of his battle-suit jacket and The World echoed his movements, giving a four-fold grip on his clothes to lift him up. "If those two meet, with their exponential levels of power, what do you think will happen to the rest of the city!? It'll be like a bomb dropping, won't it!? You're the expert, so you should judge better than me what's going to happen!"

"Relax!" REO said. Jojo loosened his grip, as did The World, returning its arms back into the mental solitude of Jojo's mind. "We'll get there. Driver, do it. Contact medical transport and have them report back to the main base ASAP!"

"Understood sir" the driver said. "We are now en route to the Roads Memorial park, corner of 5th West and Nallany Street. We will dispatch immediately upon arrival."

"We've got it under control, Jojo" REO said, giving Jojo a reassuring grip on the shoulder.

"This is Gerald Reach" the radio called. Jojo recognized the name and associated its face to the pale, anti-social and cripplingly nervous young man he and REO encountered some time ago. "The transport I'm in is already at that destination. What should our orders be?"

"Investigate the area" REO said "but do not engage the enemy until we get there. If we attack it has to be full-force. Also, evacuate any remaining civilians or police officers that may be there. It's likely that we will be using that area as a battlefield soon."

"Got it" Gerald said. "Uh, Roger" he called to correct himself.

"He's here too?" Jojo asked.

"He stepped in of his own accord" REO said. "Seems he was done being bullied the second we handed him a gun."

"Hey, we shouldn't involve extra parties in this, right?" Jojo said. "I mean, I'm willing to fight, but why pressure Gerald? Did you do the same to Eric or Zeppeli?"

"There's no need for theatrics, **son**" a soldier said. The words he spoke, and the charisma he spoke with, that unforgettable voice prompted Jojo to turn with an astonished horror on his face. In a wholly unspeakable revelation, **William Antonio Zeppeli** revealed himself as one of the faceless, masked men who had fought with Jojo just earlier. Jojo recalled a soldier reassuring him with a simple pat on the shoulder and the warmth he received from it, being no plainly human warmth in of itself. Jojo's world had been turned full around. "In times of great conflict, great heroes are born. What man wouldn't want to be regaled as such a hero?" Jojo could neither refute nor attest to the comment he made by his mentor and his father-figure. He was rendered so totally speechless that Zeppeli merely chuckled to himself and drew out from a side pocket a crushed top hat. With a flick of his wrist it expanded and he equipped it shamelessly.

"You must place yourself, Johnathan" Zeppeli said. "Only you can do such a thing as determine your fate. We are all men of the same flowing blood, the same eternal life force of souls, and we are all destined for but one ultimatum: Death. If you so chose to pass death by for now, and remove yourself from harm's way intentionally, you submit to no will greater or of more influence than your own. However, if you chose to fight, you will not be alone, for all the men you see and all those you still don't know about, have chosen to fight giving everything they have to give in the effort to deliver great justice to a great potential evil! Jojo, it is your decision alone. Chose what must be done by you and yourself alone! **Where shall you stand, knowing well that the Earth shall be torn up from under you as a great war ignites all around you!?**" Jojo was shocked. Zeppeli's pointing finger at the end of his rousing speech had fixed him in place like a nail through his chest. His thoughts swam, still shaken by the surprise of seeing Zeppeli so suddenly, and he became confused.

"Hey, calm down with that" REO said, lowering Zeppeli's arm. "I though we agreed that _I'm_ the head of this operation. I don't care who trained the troops how much, I was a part of that training too. This is the grand army of REO Speedwagon Conglomerate. Once there's a Zeppeli Multinational Private Police, you can say whatever you want." Zeppeli smirked down at REO and gave him a brief but lofty chuckle. REO laughed as well. "Ah, do whatever! Who do I think you are, y'know!?"

"You are certainly a jester, Robert!" Zeppeli said. "Always one to brighten the mood with such straight-faced jokes!"

"I..." Jojo said with a clenched jaw. The laughter stopped and both men shifted focus almost immediately onto young Johnathan. Jojo held an open hand to his chest, in front of his heart, and held up the other with a fist tightly clenched and shaking. He glared at his own fist, concentrating on it with a subdued sort of rage, and he growled out an answer. "I chose...to fight! If I can, I chose...**to Control my Fate!!!**" Zeppeli grinned and nodded at Jojo's decision.

_I can see that my reading was right_ Zeppeli thought. _That power within him is still sealed away, but even at a distance I can tell how great it is, and how great it shall become. Jojo, what will you show to us, to the world, when you break free of your bindings? Show us, soon, the power of you World!_ And such was the scene, one of stirring bravery and youthful vows of loyal servitude in the face of danger, of terror, and the chivalrous silent decree to fell the villains that existed all around him. Jojo swore it by the heart that beat in his chest and the power that flowed within his veins and by the name of that stubborn yet powerful Stand of his.

_I shall unleash it!_ Jojo thought, reaching up with his fisted hand and uncurling it slowly. Beside it was another hand, the hand of The World, reaching with him. _I will control it! I will make this power mine! For justice, for good, **FOR ME!!!!**_ And thus, the wills of Jojo and The World united, and control was his as the arrogance and rebellion of The World hid away in the dark recesses of Jojo's mind....


	52. A Gathering of Much Reviled Creatures

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Running on the power of prayer and total false hopes, Starski fled through the closed city streets on a moped with a broken ankle. Shit was just getting real for him and the obligitory truth perpetuated itself as things just continued to get worse and worse all the time. When he wasn't dodging police and ducking between alleys he was looking over his shoulders and away from the litter-strewn road to see if he was still being chased.

_My instincts tell me yes_ Starski thought _and up until now they've been pretty damn reliable. I'd better head for some open ground. That son of a bitch's power could tear me apart if I get stuck in an alley or something._

"Hey you!" shouted a cop. "Stop! Stop right now!!!!" Starski skid to a stop in front of the cop car and hopped off the stolen motorbike.

"Officer" he began "listen to me, there's a man chasing me that's already nearly killed another policeman. He's running, but goddamn, he can run! You've gotta get out of here right now!" The cop, a young and arrogant kid with a long chin, swatted Starski's hands from his shoulders and scoffed.

"I'll have you know" he said with a nasal voice "that police are being trained to target people exhibiting the symptoms of illegal narcotics use, and you sir, fall right between several very distinct lines of explicit cocain delirium. Against the car, please." He got out a notebook and started scrawling down his latest capture while Starski's anger forced his Stand to summon accidentally. He drew it back with a calm breath and leaned on the back of his car to look at his ankle.

"Shit" Starski cursed. "That's really broken, ain't it?"

"Alright, sir" the cop said. "Let's come down off the car and-hey, what happened to your foot?"

"That punk busted my ankle" Starski said. "He pinned me to the ground and stomped on it with, I don't know, iron-sole boots or some shit and snapped it. He's crazy!"

"And you said he attacked a cop?" the officer said.

"They left" Starski said "when it happened. He's still after me, I think, and I doubt he's very far behind. This man is a killer, sir. He's got all kids of shit on his person to kill any other person with, and I've seen him do it."

"Well hmmm" the officer hummed. He scratched his blond sideburn and looked down to the ground. Starski wasn't acting paranoid anymore, he was completely serious and stoic, holding his ankle up and scanning over how he could fix it.

"Hey" Starski asked, "you don't have an emergency stint or some straight piece of wood, do you?"

"Huh?" the cop grunted. "Uh, no, I don't. Listen, get in the car and I'll take you to the hospital. You seem straight enough, just panicked."

_Free ride_ Starski thought. _Excellent. Now all I've gotta worry about is Dio finding out what I'm up to, and that prissy little bitch of a man must be all the way across town flying around like a bat!_ Starski was aided into the back of the car and the officer, out of pity, drove him away just as Disturbed saw the car leave. The dark man reeled back and shouted to the sky, chasing after Starski anew with a terrible energy and an excess speed of forty miles per hour. The thick tentacles flowed through his legs and into his feet, powering his body drastically from within.

The tentacles themselves, on a scientific basis, were akin to muscle fibers that were produces in excess by Disturbed's body. The Sickness, as a Stand, was merely the collective group of muscle-fibers in Disturbed's body, maleable and extendable within the control of the man's fragile mind. While Disturbed did indeed control the Stand, the Stand was a part of his body, and therefore The Sickness held a degree of control over its user as well. Such is the twisted nature of Stands, to grant the fateful of the world with the most deranged powers to warp their already deranged and cracked minds.

After a short drive, the police officer stopped in front of a police station and exited the car to help Starski up.

"Don't worry" he said. "Despite the appearance, this is also a temporary hospital. Since the incident every public office and building has been routed out as an emergency care clinic and all the trained doctors and civilians are working as volunteers for the injured."

"Some crazy shit must have happened" Starski said, recalling the strange occurrences at his base when the Synchronicity Event occurred. He remembered, in detail, how that one pale and talkative man simply died in the middle of his game, and how Dio was even reeling about in a mad sort of pain, and the frightening paralysis that had stunned him standing. _It's Stands_ Starski realized. _That chick Dio's after must be the cause of all this. If her coming to this city has that big of an effect, shit, then I dread to think what would happen if someone started fighting her. Then again, if Dio dies, I guess I get my gang back, so who the fuck cares anymore....?_ Starski and the officer were met at the door by two more officers, a male and female, who helped Starski off the street with his bad foot.

Then, from down the street, a terrible carnal cry turned their heads. "Oh shit" Starski cursed. "That's him! That's the maniac!"

"He's the one, eh?" the arrogant young blond cop said. He took out a gun and crouched to a knee. Taking careful aim he fired directly at Disturbed's mask, but the bullet pinged right off.

"He's wearing a mask!" Starski warned. "Try his legs! Get him down!"

"But no armor!" the cop noticed. "He's already assumed with first-degree assault against an officer. Putting him down is just procedure."

"Shit" Starski lowed. "Get inside you two! Now!" The cops listened to his command, strangely, and left him at the threshold of the downtown police ward. Starski summoned Run DMC and took in a breath. His Stand imitated him and stretched out its arms while taking in a huge rush of air from its back gills. Its turbines began spinning up as they concentrated the air, spinning it around with incredible speed to booming power.

"Freeze!" the cop shouted. He aimed carefully and pulled the trigger to fire. Disturbed wound back and arm and threw forward a thick tentacle of his Stand, separating the young cop's face from his body, **bashing his lower jaw and neck straight off his head.**

"You heard the man!" Starski cried. Run DMC aimed both barrels his way, and Disturbed changed route. **"FREEZE!!!"** Starski blasted and both arms of his Stand were thrown back by the force. Disturbed leaped and dodged the enormous rush of air that made a crater of concrete and asphalt in the city street. He hooked his feet into the ground and The Sickness began to wriggle its way out of his skin. It even reached up out of his perpetually grinning mouth-hole and reached up into the eyeholes of his leather mask.

**HUUUUUUUOOOOOAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!**

Run DMC lowered its right arm, which still spun, and suddenly fired a blast of air that hit Disturbed right in the mouth. "Huh!" Starski laughed. "Idiot! Why fire both barrels when one's all I need to fight with at a time? I can't believe you fell for that too, you big idiot!" Disturbed was groaning in pain and holding onto his neck with his hands. With a loud, human cry, he took his pale hands and straightened his neck with a sudden, sick snap. Starski reeled back when he heard it. _No fucking way!_ Disturbed straightened himself out and breathed audibly in the chaotic night air. Starski could see his human mouth beneath the mask, grinning wide and evil...

_Ah shit_ Starski thought. _He's....not any kid of man I can fight..._

"Get back!" a policewoman shouted. She got beside Starski with a shotgun and unloaded into Disturbed's thick, leathery mask. He brought up his arms to block and filled them with his tentacles. They grew to grotesque sizes each, thick like overinflated balloons, and coursed with writhing black veins.

"Inside, now!" another officer shouted as he took Starski's shoulder and threw him back. Starski picked himself up into a three-limbed crawl as the doorway was filled with officers firing guns. Disturbed fled, protecting his head with his bulbous arms, and disappeared nearby. "Lockdown! ASAP!" the commanding officer ordered. The door was shut, locked, deadbolted and then reinforced with a thick metal grate of a door.

"Don't worry, sir" the Captain of the squad said. "That **Stand User** is as good as captured!" Starski was in awe, cast into the protective shadow of ten men and women wielding shotguns, rifles and pistols bravely against a force they could not fight, and with the knowledge to fight it.

"You know.....about Stands?" Starski said in confusion. "Well then......shit, why are you still using those guns?"

"Don't underestimate us" the proper woman officer said as she reloaded her shotgun. "We're a specially trained squad, taught by the experts of paranormal studying at the REO Speedwagon institute."

"We'll do anything to protect the peace" the captain said "even if we can't fight on even terms. That is our solemn duty." Starski nodded with appreciation. Finally, he found allies in the most unlikely place, allies against whatever dark force he decided to hate...including Dio...

* * *

A black van, within resting the blacker vanguard of Dio's Frozen Nights, sped through the empty streets in a pursuit of supernatural activity. They had nothing to rely on but the trustworthiness of the men and women broadcasting over the emergency radio channels and police scanners. Three men listened in on stolen radios all hooked up through the dash of clustered wires, all of them to report any interesting findings on events happening around the city immediately. Another man yet sat in front of a laptop covered with small windows that showed text messages being sent from phones all over the city, as well as the approximate position of each phone based on the ping from sending command to tower and then to receiving phone.

All the actions were overseen by the gloriously dressed Rosalisa. She sat in the passenger seat while a masked man drove, ever awaiting a signal or a word from their Lord to move. As Rosalisa watched the streets go by, empty and dark and some even in the afterglow of some riotous rush from earlier that had been quelled by the authorities, she began picking up on all the floating remnants of energy in the air. She felt deep in her chest that they were drawing closer to a great impasse, or some great event where many fates were beginning to congregate already.

"Someone's spotted a strange creature" a man reported from the back " a few blocks away. They say it's a monkey on a skateboard."

"We've got a picture" the laptop man said. "It's Monkey Business. He's been spotted."

"Go" Rosalisa calmly commanded. The driver took directions from the rear, a quick left and then the third right, and there, pushing his way down the street, was Monkey Business on a skateboard. "Get him inside" Rosalisa commanded.

"Yes!" the laptop wielder said. He placed his tool on the floor and waited for the van to get in front of the creature. Then he opened the door and held out a hand. "Come on, MB! Get inside!" The monkey was confused at first, and a bit cautious against the strange man prompting him to go with him, but he was smart enough to recognize his adoptive gang members by their apparel and their general presence. He hopped up and crawled along the man's hand to get to the front of the car. The doors were closed and the van continued speeding away. MB reported straight to Rosalisa and held out the beacon cell-phone that Starski had been trusted with.

"So he's dead" Rosalisa said. MB shrugged. "You did well to escape a fight you couldn't win, however, I doubt Lord Dio will have such good humor to learn that one of his agents failed. Where must we go now?" Rosalisa turned down to MB who hopped up onto the dash and started pointing directions with wordless grunts for the driver to follow. They made their way through the streets under the monkey's guide and were stopped just outside of a park. "Turn the car off" Rosalisa commanded "and blend in. MB, what is here?" MB summoned his Stand, DAGON, and it blew a bubble that showed the silhouette of a woman with reaching, nebulous hair. "So it's _that_ woman. Very good. You've done a great thing leading us here, MB." MB hopped into her lap and leaned against her like a seat leisurely. She let him, her mind on more important matters, and lowered her head from the view of the window.

"Stay out of sight" she ordered. "If she is nearby, she will attack us without warning if she can."

"Should we exit the vehicle, miss?" one of the men in the back asked.

"Only if we know it's clear" the driver answered. "Keep yourselves well armed, and remember, we protect Rosalisa first and foremost. They were parked on the same street as multiple unattended cars, all past their parking meters but only half with tickets. On that same street was an old church with a wooden steeple under reconstruction from the inside. The doors were heavily locked and latched with a thick wooden barricade on the inside to keep vagrants and vandals out of the church at night. Even so, a great deviant mind was within and exited promptly with a bang of wind as an entire church pew was smashed into the wooden doors and blasted them open. The remants of the broken bench hit the street as splintered wooden shrapnel. MUSE, the queen, stood at the top of the steps with a hand on her cocked hips, overlooking the park across the street, so rich of life and verdant green. She licked her lips and started towards it, the shadow of her Stand crawling back into her from behind.

MB could sense her great power and his animal instincts shouted at him to take flight away, for such a predator would surly tear him apart and devour him if he wasn't careful. Though his body was rough and durable, his mortality was the same as any monkey, and with his mind meshed with that of a human, he unfortunately _knew_ just what his mortality was. Rosalisa sensed MUSE as well, but not in the refined animal way of MB. She simply knew, by the sudden sound that she entered with, that she was there. Most of the men shared her sense of knowing, and knew only inasmuch as they knew a door had been burst open and thrown down into the street as an act of misguided and senseless power. The cocked their guns and held themselves ever ready to charge under the command that Rosalisa was yet to give.

Outside, MUSE moved into the park, abandoned and lonely, to walk along the walkway in solitary darkness. She looked around at the cityscape surrounding her, like dead mountains sealing her into a narrow valley of life. She was surrounded by natural life and light from the trees and the dimly clouded rising moonlight. She looked up and smirked at the sky. The clouds moved away from the moon as a breeze picked up swiftly and billowed her hair like a cloudy darkness around her head.

"A full moon" she spoke. "What a fitting omen for my arrival. The virgin moon and her silver-hearted child on the blue Earth below. How jealous...that moon must be of me..." In her ramblings MUSE accidentally woke a nearby sleeping man. He crawled up from a drunken sleeping stupor and stood with tattered, aged clothes and a dirt-ridden beard. A homeless man with no more sense than he had home, walked up to young and beautiful MUSE with hungry, masculine eyes.

"Guinevere!" he exclaimed. He fell at her and she stepped away. He nearly fell over as he hunch but lunged back up to grab MUSE from the darkness. The girl just dodged tauntingly and began a chase that the man unwillingly partook of. "Wait you! You wait, you!" the man called. MUSE led him down the walkway further and up to a bridge. She leaned against the railing of the bridge, which led down to a walkway leading underneath, and then seemed to jump off as she rolled backwards. "No! Not that! Come back!" he called. He jumped over the side of the bridge and landed on his knees, breaking them both on the instant of painful impact with the hard concrete walkway. MUSE was slowly lowered through the air by tentacles from her back. When her feet touched the tentacles wound back into her body and converged into her Stand.

"Feast" MUSE commanded. An arm extended out from her body, appearing just on the border of her natural, inhuman aura. It was a lithe and organic arm, smooth and muscular and colored a sickly green with fingers ending in slimy points without nails. It reached down to the crying man's head and grabbed it, pulling the skin of his face back as it forced him up. Then another arm appeared, this one the left as the right held the man's head, and it uncurled instantly into a **writhing, amorphous mass of tentacles with no beginning or end.** "Eat well, my Stand. Devour until you are full...." The tentacles surrounded the man's torso and started crushing it. The right hand likewise became a cluster of tentacles from the wrist on and enveloped the head it held. MUSE watched with a sadistic grin as her Stand writhed and crushed the body it held, and when the tentacles departed **there was nothing in them. Only the bloody remains of a man's lower body were there, the rest disappeared.**

"This race had nothing to offer me now" MUSE said. "I have become the decider of men's fates. Those who I will not to live, I shall devour. Those who stand in my way will be eaten by my Stand and given to nourish my body!" Her Stand came out then, its whole body lacking the semblance of anything unearthly, but still seeming wholly inhuman. It had no armor but green skin and was an immaculate design. Just below its ribcage was an emerald orb embedded in its skin, and two more orbs at its knees and one final one between its empty eyes. Its face was otherworldly. Like a human but without a nose, and with wide circle eyes, and a mouth that stretched far enough to bear all its teeth without stretching. When it opened its mouth there was only darkness within and from that darkness up squirmed wormy, reaching, tentacle-like tongues.

"Stand of mine" MUSE proclaimed, "let us go through his miserable world and devour all its pitiable, worthless beings!!!" Her Stand emitted no sound, yet still the trees all shivered as it seemed to be screaming. With a sudden rush of wind, like a blast of muted sound, it exploded and its form changed into a huge cluster of moving tentacles, all mindless and separate and extending from the nucleus of MUSE's body. "Oh look, more pests on the horizon. I wonder how long they will last...?" MUSE turned her head not toward Rosalisa's van, as it was already emptied and the beacon in it already silently blaring its signal, but to the other further end of the park where more mysterious people seemed to arrive in a vehicle much better suited for combat transportation than a simple van.....

* * *

"Looks like we found our calamity" REO said. He spied through the trasnport's top-side camera from within the heavily armored craft and saw the mass writhing in the distance of the park. It vanished suddenly, as if it retracted to its origin, and prompted REO to leave from the visual feed of the screen. "Alright gentlemen, shoot to kill. If bullets don't work use smoke. If smoke doesn't work then it's flammable, so use fire. If fire doesn't work use light. If, somehow, light fails to work, get to cover and we'll call in a bombardment."

"If all else fails" Jojo declared "I want you to leave it to me."

"Don't be a fool, boy" Zeppeli said. "If we leave it all to you there'll be no room for our glory to flaunt itself! No, it's up to you regardless of what works. If all else fails, _I_ will step in."

"If you're certain" REO said "then you'll be our auxiliary fail-safe."

"You have my word of success" he said with a bow and the tip of his hat.

"Hey, REO" Jojo said, calling him over discretely.

"What's up?" REO asked. Jojo leaned in and whispered to him.

"Just what _is_ Zeppeli's Stand power?" he asked.

"Hopefully" REO whispered back "you won't have to see it. Trust me." Jojo just nodded. He'd accept any answer he could now that he was a soldier with the rest of REO's squad. He lacked armor and opted only for a single pistol, but still he felt he deserved a soldier's title for his raw adamant bravery and willingness to fight. "Last weapon check. We move out now!" The soldiers each took a moment to check their weapons and equipment over before the hatch opened and they filed out. REO and Jojo were the last out, followed by an unarmed Zeppeli to keep behind of the greater marching pack as their emergency reserve.

"Get flanks on the enemy" REO ordered. "Jojo and me are going straight in."

"Seriously?" Jojo asked.

"We have a chance against them" REO said "since we're Stand users. Those guys need to stay hidden."

"This is Eagle flank" reported one of the soldiers that started running to the left. "We're taking the long route around. Target is estimated to be heading this way from the further end of the park, near the pond."

"Got it" REO said.

"This is Otter flank" the right flank soldier reported. "I'm taking a scan of the area while the rest go ahead. I'm going to climb a tree to get a better sweep."

"Keep my current then" REO said. "Jojo, you want to split up?"

"I think we'll be fine together" Jojo said. "Just stay alert and I'll keep up my Sun Ripple as much as possible."

"How fast can you heal a bullet wound with that power?" REO asked.

"Not _fast_" Jojo said "but I can ease the pain a good bit."

"That's good to know" REO said. "Alright, get some cover!" REO and Jojo split up and dove into bushes at opposite sides of the walkway.

"This is Otter flank!" the soldier reported. "I see you both! The something approaching your position already! It's a woman!" REO disengaged his radio and silenced the frequency in his earpiece. Jojo's breathing stayed constant but quiet as a girl moved between them both and stopped. She wore a fabulous dress with a miniskirt of frilled lace, all black and red with rosy patterns of lace gathered all over her splendid black bouquet of a dress. Jojo shifted uneasily in his cover, as he knew exactly who this person was. Indeed, Rosalisa was escorted through the park, far around MUSE, while her vanguard prepared to surround and entrap the fiendish woman in a ring of fire on the path she walked.

"Johnathan" Rosalisa said. Jojo rose up from the bush and brushed his hair of leaves. REO stood up as well with his gun in sight but not aimed down at her. She turned to Jojo with MB on her shoulder. "You shouldn't be here. This is Lord Dio's battleground, and he is without reserve to take you on as well."

"Let him then" Jojo said. He held out his flexing arm and summoned the arm of The World behind it. It edged out from Jojo's body and stood beside him, its red eyes glaring and a curled smirk on its face underneath its helmet-like head. "I'm ready to take him on if he's willing to fight me." Rosalisa looked down at his Stand arm and saw it leave as his grip was loosened.

"Then you'd better prepare yourself for war" Rosalisa said. "Our enemy is coming, and we are determined to fight it to death."

"What enemy?" REO asked. "Have you already had contact with the high-energy Stand user in this area?" Rosalisa turned wordlessly to him, meeting him with nothing of a response but an ice-cold stare. REO backed away and moved across the road to Jojo's side. "Let's keep moving. If they want the first attack then let them have it." REO reinitialized his radio and contacted the first flank. "Eagle flank, give me a report on suspicious characters mobilizing against the enemy." He got no answer. "Eagle flank, report!"

"What a useless bunch...." a tired voice replied. Jojo and REO were both struck and stunned instantly by it, as if they'd heard and known it before. "They were so easy to kill...such useless beings. But, by dying, they gave me a reason to live, so I guess they're not so useless after all, right? But what am I?"

"Who is this!?" REO demanded. "What have you done to my soldiers!?" Off in the distance, surrounded by husks of bodies dried into fragile shells of lifeless skin and bone, sat a man wearing a wet coat and long, greasy hair. His chest was exposed, pale and thin and bony with a thick red scar running from shoulder to shoulder. He held one of the earpieces, still attached to a bloody ear, near his mouth as he spoke.

"**I'm just a boy named Sue"** he said **"whose got nothing to do...."** An enemy from the past, one that seems distant and ancient, risen again to fight. "You two, you wanna help me? **I'm a worthless boy now, but if I fight you I might make something of myself. You wanna die?"**

"No way" Jojo said.

"This shit just gets worse and worse!" REO exclaimed. Rosalisa had already lost interest and walked down the path still. A new enemy in the park, a phenomenon of pure evil walking about, all fores clashing together with the same goal but no peace in their hearts. And over all of this the stars and virgin moon watched, and between the heavens and the Earth below there stood a man at the top of a building with great, black demon wings extended from his back and a breastplate of ethereal, living armor across his chest. He stood on the precarious edge of the roof on the balls of his feet, ready to leap through the air and begin a plummet forward at any moment to meet his foes and engage in a bloody battle. He reached behind his back and took out a colorless stone mask with a leather strap attached to reach around his head. He put it on and glared out of the narrow eyeholes. With his wings extended wide and full in the blooming night, he threw open his arms and cried out to the black sky above a wicked battlecry to shake and sunder the hearts of all men before him.

**WRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!** That unmistakable roar of terror; Truly, this was Dio Brando, Lord of the Night, who jumped from the roof and flew over the trees like a phantom, a nightmare, coursing in the skies of human life...


	53. Disturbed 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Out in the streets of the city darkness a terrible power grew. Disturbed and his Stand, The Sickness, two whole beings merged madly together. The black collective entity coiled and wrapped itself around the human shell's skin many times, binding his arms and legs with thickly coiled wraps of impenetrable, mobile armor. His mask, worn out and starting to rip from the constant usage and fighting he'd just undergone, was sewn back together at its ripping seems and held fast with the black threads of the Stand's continuous body. He was wrapped in darkness before too long and stood up from his huddle in the shadows, so dark that the shadows and he seemed to merge in parts.

His eyes shone white from the holes of his mask and he took back to the streets by means of the building walls, crawling along them like a lizard, to get back to the rear entrance of the defiant police building.

Inside, the station was under authority of the counter-Stand police squadron and the people within were attended to by the trained medical staff of the department. Mostly the people who couldn't make it in time to any other shelter were offered to stay in the wider cells of the police station, which were left open for them, and the criminals all were taken into the same immediate area within the prison under heavy surveillance. Starski's ankle was wrapped and treated with a stint to keep it together and in place. As soon as he could, he took aside the police captain away from the civilians and began to talk to him about Stands.

"So you can't see them?" Starski asked. The captain shook his head. "Can any of your guys?"

"No" he replied "but we have technology that allows us to. We have light-wave technology, sort of like flashlights, that not only reveal but also can suppress Stand energy."

"Really?" Starski said. "That's....amazing. But, I don't think it'll be much help right now."

"How so?" the captain asked.

"This guy's Stand" Starski began "is a part of him. It's already a physical entity. You don't need any special lights to see it, it's plain as day. Well, actually, plain as night. It's a bunch of pitch-black tentacles that are under his skin that he can use at will, however he wants. He can pierce straight through concrete with them, grow super-strong muscles ins his arms with them, as far as I can tell he can do the same with his legs and run at the same speed as a speeding taxi without getting tired. They're like a part of him, but they're their own thing too."

"And what about durability?" the captain asked.

"Hard as steel" Starski said. "You can shoot through his skin, but if there's tentacles underneath, it won't do any good."

"But has be been shot?" the captain asked.

"Multiple times" Starski said.

"I see" the captain said. "Well, if it's a Stand, then we can still at least suppress it and see if that weakens it. We don't know much about Stands. Frankly, even the Stand user who taught us everything and equipped us to fight Stands didn't know everything. He admitted that to us first thing."

_Sounds like a good teacher_ Starski thought sarcastically.

"...but at least now we know what we're dealing with" the captain continued. "Thank you for your cooperation, sir. If I may, I'd like to ask for your cooperation in apprehending this supernatural criminal. We'll give you all the equipment and training we can in this short period, but we won't ask you to do the impossible. A foot-chase is obviously out of the question for now."

"That's true" Starski said, looking down at his bum ankle, which he kept off of by hopping and balancing with his shoulder or back against a wall whenever he could and had to stand. "Well, I'd be glad to offer you whatever help I can, as a Stand user, but I'd like a small favor in return, if that's possible."

"For helping us" the captain said "I'll be sure that we do whatever we can."

"Then" Starski said, offering the captain no room to withdraw anything he had begun to say, "I need some protection while I skip the city after all this is over. There's a nasty guy I'm working for, named Dio Brando, a Stand user, who conned me into his gang. Now he's threatening to kill me and my only family, my aunt in the slums, if I don't comply with everything he tells me to do. I'm not asking you to go on any kind of man-hunt, I just need to get as far away from here as possible to make him think I died. Then I can return, get my aunt, and leave without anyone being any wiser." The captain was initially stunned by the rapid flow of information, but gathered and sorted it quickly.

"Understood" he said. "Sir, we'll do whatever we can to help you and your aunt...." He paused for a name. Starski paused as well, to think of a name, and suddenly blurted out the first one that came to him.

"Toni" he said.

".....her name is Toni?" the captain asked.

"Yeah, uh" Starski began, "like Toni Morrison, you know."

"I see" the captain said. "And, well, do you know where she lives? It might be easier to escort her out of town first, and then help you after."

"Uhh" Starski began, fishing his mind for a good follow up. He could see right away that this man wasn't easy to fool, and using him to escape from Dio would be more tricky than he wanted it to be. "Well, they have her. It's not necessarily a hostage situation, but they don't let her leave her house, they keep her inside all the time, always have somebody watching her. Basically, if I screw up at all, they call the guy over there and he does something, and I don't want to know what he does so I've never tried anything."

"So this man may be armed?" the captain said.

"I...don't....know" Starski said. He stared into the captain's eyes, feeling the concentrated weight of his nerves intensify as he grit his teeth inside his tightly-shut lips. _It's a crime to lie to a police officer. It's only __**now**__ that I remember that._ The captain placed a steady hand on Starski's shoulder and had a shadowed, doubtless look on his face, one of great pride and sympathy.

"We'll arrange for you and your aunt" he began "to be placed on the witness protection program we operate nationwide. You'll be out of the state by tomorrow." Starski smiled and nodded with thanks, then shaking the man's hand with both of his in sheer joy. Just then, in the dark of the night, the power was cut off. The generators provided to help power the equipment of the medical officers were kicked on and temporary, minimal power was restored to the building's cell area, just in time to shy away a great, fiendish shadow that lurked outside the booking office windows.

"What was that!?" an officer exclaimed. Another one flicked on a blue flashlight attached to the bottom of a tactical police shotgun and cocked it.

"Hunting season's open" he said with a grin. The Stand hunt began as the unwitting prey moved around much like an animal, mad and wild...

* * *

The hour was midnight, or something somewhere past. Even the old and trained Starski was beginning to get tired. It was a night he'd never thought before of living, certainly never before he acquired his Stand's power, but now he regardless found himself with four blue lights upon him as his Stand was summoned behind him.

"So that's what one looks like" a rookie officer said. "It's kinda robotic, you know?"

"They mostly are" Starski said. He checked the pistol he'd been loaned, one with a regular flashlight and laser sight. A Glock .30 with recoil-dampener device built in, specifically designed for police and semi-military combat in urban areas. He checked the clip, twelve bullets full, and the two clips at his side on his belt. He sighed and cocked the gun back again, sliding the frame with a click. "It'd be better if I had a more open area. My Stand uses a kind of jet-intake power to draw in and then blast air, but I'll manage."

"We'll secure the civilians then" the captain of the team said. "Alright, enough gawking, get a perimeter!" His squad moved on the cue of his voice and locked down the cell block of the station where everyone was. Two on each side to cover the two doors and two to control the crowd and try to ease everyone's nerves despite the guns they carried in hand. The rest of the officers were stationed throughout the station with varying guns, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles all branded with the REO logo, in arms. Starski and the captain of the force remained near each other. Starski's leg was wrapped in more heavy-duty gauze and then cased inside a rigid boot to act as a cast. It was tight and stuffy but it let him walk with a limp instead of hop and drag his foot around.

"Mr. Starski" the captain began suddenly. "I'd just like to say, not only for myself, but on behalf of all the officers here, we thank you for being such an admirable man in helping us. I must admit, when I first heard of Stands I thought it was the ramblings of some mad man cultist. Now I'm proud to say that I have met you, an amazing individual with such power, and I am proud to fight by your side as a just man against the injustice that dares to dirty your unique powers."

"Thank you, sir" Starski said. He gave a quick salute and the captain nodded it down. They split apart just then, the captain taking Starski's back while he moved slowly and cautiously, staying light on his broken ankle, into the open corridor that led straight to an emergency fire exit. He looked, shining his flashlight, and saw the doors still closed. He examined them closely and approached silently. The wires were still attached that ran up and into the wall, which rang the alarms through the whole building once the door was used. Starski could see no penetration on the box containing the components that signaled said wire, nor could he see any possible breach in the doors. They were sealed completely shut and locked down from the outside.

_Looks like that's a bum idea_ Starski thought. _If he came in this way, where would he go? There's nothing but a janitor closet and a solid windowpane in this hallway, and neither of those have been touched either. He hasn't come this way. I'd better check more towards the back of the building..._ Starski's instincts weren't wrong, but they were behind. Disturbed had already found a way in by means of the air conditioning ducts on the roof. The captain had anticipated it and intentionally stationed men to guard the hallways between the ducts. That way, if the fiend did use them, he would be heard by at least one man and promptly attacked through the wall. It was dead quiet. The sounds of people talking from the locked and sealed room even reached through the building where Starski was as soft and very distant murmurs.

In that area, tightly sealed from the rest of the building, the citizens still in shock and confusion over the pain and the suffering they were currently suppressed by. All of it unknown, totally arcane, and out of completely nowhere. Few were in a critical state, forced onto breathing machines gathered from the hospital's extra equipment found on the recently unlocked thirteenth floor, all of them strangely in fine-tuned condition. The volunteer medics assisting the people, some of whom had bandaged heads and arms in slings from car crashes following the incident, constantly moved from one complaint and groan to the next, trying to satiate everyone at once and sedate their aches and pains away.

"Doctor" a man weakly groaned, lying on a stretcher near the wall. "I have a sharp pain in my back all of a sudden."

"Can I have you turn over, please?" the medic asked. He turned the man over himself and let him groan. There was a bloody spot on the back of his shirt. The doctor lifted it up and saw a pin-prick of a wound that was dripping blood. "Looks like a tiny puncture wound. I'll get a bandage. Don't move."

"Thank you" the man groaned. He stayed on his side with his back open to the cold wall behind him, groaning and wincing at the burning pain, like something was picking at his wound and poking at it. Making it larger and wider, digging a deeper scar all the time. The doctor returned and, to his surprise, found the wound no longer the size of a pin but of a nail, like it had been scratched back open. "Ooowww...." the man weakly groaned. His breathing began to slow and the doctor quickly patched his back before turning him off his side again.

"I'm going to move you, sir" the medic said. "This ground isn't safe to be laying on." The doctor called for a police officer to help him and they moved the man from the ground on his stretcher onto a softer prison bed. The people who were sitting there moved away as the man was laid down with a loud wince of pain.

"Ahh!" he gasped. "Ah, it's getting worse! It feels like I'm being stabbed!"

"I'll need to sterilize it" the medic said. "I'll be back in a second." He went through the dim-lit room to a cart of supplies and searched quickly through the neatly cataloged, always organized arrangement of bottles, boxes and clear plastic bags, but despite his full search he found nothing. "That's odd. Where is it?"

"What's wrong?" an officer asked.

"I can't find any sterilizing agent" the medic said. "A man has a cut from the floor and I need to treat the wound. He's still bleeding and I already put a temporary bandage over it..."

"It's hard to think that those floors could cut" the officer said. "We clean them every day, without fail, so that there aren't any leftover bits of things for the prisoners to pick up or use. We made sure it was completely clean when we got word that we were being converted to a shelter."

"Well something cut him" the medic said. "If it wasn't the floor then it could have been someone else. Regardless, I need to treat that wound of his..." The medic went on looking through his cart for any kind of anti-bacterial agent at all, but to absolutely no avail.

"Ahhhh!!" the man groaned, now lively and full of pain. He turned to his side with a shaking body and suddenly gripped the sides of the bed he was on.

"What is it?" a man nearby asked, taking to the groaning man on the bed.

"It....'s killing me....." he said. He dropped down off of the bed and flat onto his stomach. Blood ran down the sides of his body. **His spine was exposed, a huge gaping hole in his back.**

"Good lord!" a woman shouted. The medic ran back over and stalled just in front of the cell door, looking on through the dark in unspeakable horror. Adults shielded the eyes of children and of themselves. A man had died so ghastly, and so vividly in front of them, and all they could do was blame the shadows.

"Mommy" a young boy quietly began, "I don't feel good...." The mother turned to her child and saw a sickly paleness to his face. He began to cough, silently, then wretch as if he was going to vomit.

"Oh, dear" she began. "Please, if you can, hold it in. I know it's very distressing but-" she stopped. Even she, an ordinary person, could see it. The snake-like thing in her son's ear, a tangible shadow crawling up his shoulder and into his head. The boy's eyes suddenly rolled back and he opened his mouth wide. **A black tentacle wriggled out and started lashing, his neck and small head following it's movement, limp and dead.** The mother was so horrified that she couldn't speak. The tentacle pierced into her throat, silencing her for good, and then retreated back into the shadows, through a crack burrowed in the solid concrete walls that led outside, and both mother and son fell dead.

"Oh shit!" an officer called. "Everyone, get away from the walls! **We're under attack!!!**" A panic broke out. The officers armed their weapons and engaged the blue lights as many people sped away from the walls of the cells for the apparent, crowded safety of the hallway. The officer's moved through the crowd of people, helped the medics cart out those too weak or in critical condition out of the cells, and held themselves fast to their guns, aiming at the wall with their Stand lights shining out the enemy. The medic was still in the cell, his body hunched in horror over the corpse of the man he failed to help.

"Get out of here!" the officer shouted.

"This can't be...." the man said. "It was just a tiny prick....nothing but a scratch. And now, suddenly, it's turned out like this?"

"Get back!" the officer demanded. "There's an enemy in there! You could die!"

"Oh, let me" the man said, shaking his head. He turned to the armed guard with four lithe black tendrils already slithering across his cheek. "A man like me, incapable of helping anyone, I don't deserve-" The tentacles suddenly latched across his face, dug in, **and tore off his face with a vicious rip. **The guard was frozen in disgust but managed to shoot his shotgun at the wall, casting sparks to brighten the dark corners. The wall stayed black in most places. The Sickness had already wormed its way through and covered the bare wall with its reaching, deadly tentacles.

Disturbed held an arm half-buried into the wall, all his body limp and supported only by that one thick arm which his Stand tunneled through. His body was a pale and weak, bony husk without The Sickness hoarded within it. Even his neck couldn't support the weight of his heavy, guarded mask, and so he leaned his forehead against the wall with painful and labored breaths.

"Die" he whispered. "Everyone die! Everyone must die...!!!"

* * *

"Mr. Starski!" the captain called. "Everyone! The enemy is in the main cell area! Move it now! Get the doors open and evacuate the citizens at once!"

"Hold him off for me!" Starski called. Suddenly his voice was not high enough to reach around a single corner without being drowned out by the tactical shouting and loud movements of all the officers already ahead of him and heading the same way. He couldn't run, and barely managed walking, with his gun propped at his shoulder like a soldier rushing into line formation. _Shit. I hope nobody got hurt._

"It's still locked down!" a guard shouted.

"Override it!" the captain said. "That door can't be shot open, but there is more than one way to open it!" The guard at the door opened a hidden panel, secretly built into the wall and hidden behind a sliding door colored and textured exactly like the brick around it. He hit a button inside it and the door unlocked. He and another guard pushed and opened the door with guns up and lights on.

Everyone was dead. It was a visceral, vivid scene of absolute bloodshed, sparing none. The officers were dead and their weapons either bent and useless or completely gone. Necks were broken, insides were splattered out from deep, cutting wounds, whole heads and limbs ripped from bodies and thrown around randomly. To top it all off, the obvious source was in the middle of that hall: a gaping hole in a cell wall leading outside.

"Unbelievable" a female officer said in disgust.

"He blasted straight through the wall" the captain said. "He may already be inside this building."

"To think he killed them all so quickly" a rookie officer said, awing in terror at the carnage, "is just.....it's fucking crazy! This is ridiculous!"

"Ain't anything ridiculous about it" Starski said, having finally made it there. "This guy...is really powerful. His Stand isn't normal, even by Stand standards. He's more dangerous than probably anyone I've ever met. And now, he's most likely already hunting each of us down."

"What do we do!?" an officer shouted.

"Please, sir" the captain began in all proud modesty, "any help you can give us will be appreciated."

"I already gave you my word to help" Starski said. He summoned Run DMC and drew in enough air to begin winding the turbine arm. The air was compressed and super-heated into a searing-hot point of visible fire, a floating blue light that Starski guided with his mind and was only seen by the others as a dim bulb of florescence around him. Starski turned from the bloody mess of the room and looked down the hall. It was still pitch black, but not for too long. Gathering up a massive amount of air and creating a tunnel of it from the hole leading outside, Starski fired a ball of fire down the dark hall and pushed it with a stream of fire as a tail.

It stopped not too far away and hit a wall of sheer black. Starski stopped it and regathered his Stand's fists into fighting form. From that sheer wall of blackness, Disturbed peeked out, parting a small vertical gap to glare out of as he stood behind his protective shield. Starski stepped away from the doorway and fell his back into a wall, intentionally sliding down with his gun aimed forward. The door was immediately crowded with officers, six in standing and kneeling in the metal door frame, and all seven started firing at the wall. Despite the incredible density of the Stand, The Sickness took damage from being too widely spread and gathered up inside Disturbed's body as he fled into the air ducts.

"Shoot them down!" the captain exclaimed. The officers aimed up and started spraying fire through the ceiling and into the vents. Their bullets tore through the thin sheet metal even after piercing through the average-strength walling up above. "Hold fire!" the captain shouted. All was silent. The wall crumbled a bit and the metal they had shot groaned just out of earshot, but nothing else occurred. "Is he dead?"

"He's still moving" Starski said as he got back up with his good foot and a hand sliding on the wall. "Believe me, he won't die too easily, but those tentacles were his Stand and they seemed to be getting hurt."

"Looks like there's blood over there" the rookie said, pointing the light of his gun to a splash of liquid where the tentacles had stood.

"That means we're at least hitting him for something" Starski said. "If we stay together too close, we'll probably end up like the people who were in that room. If we're too far apart, he'll just kill us one-by-one and we won't even know it. We need to stay close enough together to watch each-other's backs while leaving some fair distance between us."

"Understood" the captain said. "Everyone, listen to Mr. Starski. He has the most solid grasp of the situation right now."

"Follow me" Starski said. "I should be able to tell where he is somehow, or at least give him more of a reason to come out of hiding at will." The officers nodded and followed after him in a loose formation. Many of them were still traumatized by the bloody room and what they'd seen, but they pressed on with eyes vacant, minds blank and fingers on triggers, all while the fiend in the shadows watched them through the holes that they'd made in the darkened ceiling overhead. His Stand, to adapt to silent movement, came through all the cracked openings of skin on his belly and undulated silently to move him forward, like the muscles of a snake as it slithers across the dirt.

Starski stopped the officers just outside the main office corridor, each door locked but leading to an empty room with desks and supplies meant for filling and filing paperwork brought by the bureaucracy day in and out. He was wary to advance. He summoned his Stand and a breeze swept through the hall of the station, chilling the backs of all the officers as Run DMC sucked in enough air to once again hold a welding fire in the air.

"Captain" one of the officers whispered to his superior, "didn't we get reports about a power like that?"

"Like what?" the captain asked.

"From what I see" the man said, having eyes capable of seeing the light near Starski not as an ethereal orb but as a solid and steady fire of intense heat and power, "he seems to be able to weld. At least, it looks like a welding torch flame."

"And?" the captain asked.

"All those unexplained robberies in the past" the man continued, "all caused by some kind of super-powerful torch, and all the simultaneous damage? We thought it was from some kind of blasting mechanism, but this man seems to be generating an awful lot of wind to keep that flame up. I wonder, if he cut into something, would that wind get more powerful?" Now the captain saw where his officer was heading, but he outright denied it.

"Oh, come off it" the captain said. "Over two dozen people dead and you're thinking about something that far back!?"

"All this is just too convenient" the man said. "We meet a Stand user at total random, and he happens to be fighting an even more powerful, murderous Stand user, right near us, and gets us wrapped up in the conflict as well."

"You watch it!" the captain said, maintaining a low volume. "This man is being kind enough to assist us in a fight we would obviously otherwise fail at!"

"Hey" Starski called, "I think I've got a plan. I need you guys to hide while I draw him out, then try and attack him. We can route him back to the suppressant devices you guys have if we can get him to move how we want."

"Those are nearby" the captain said. "Three of us are already equipped with them."

"Well hot damn then" Starski said. "Use those, then. And don't worry about me. As long as we can move him around and get him disabled, then do what you can. Just go for body-blows, too. Don't bother with his legs. I'm pretty sure they're armored under that weird black leather shit." Suddenly, everyone took a leaping step back and the three with the proper arms stood out in front, aiming at Starski, the captain among them. Starski blinked in confusion, then turned with a start and let Run DMC blast him backward off his feet. Disturbed fell down with his arms both in mid-swing, tentacles static outside his flesh like black maces, devious and full of destructive power.

"Man, you're getting on my last **fucking NERVE!!!**" Run DMC slashed its welding spark through the air and a blast of wind swept in from behind the officers. They were crowded together so tightly that their combined proximity created a wall that the intake nearly blew over. Disturbed retreated a step and hit the wall, breathing heavily, as his own mask started to split from eye to jaw. "Not so tough now, are you?" Starski retreated back with a few timid hops, keeping off his bad foot, and let the officer's take care of the rest. Disturbed punched the a hole in the wall out of frustration and summoned his Stand out of his chest as a moving cloud of powerful, dense darkness.

"Now!" the captain exclaimed. The green lights went on and the energy stopped The Sickness dead in the air. It moved in the shadows, but once the light hit it, nothing worked and nothing moved.

"Now shoot it!" Starski commanded, aiming his shotgun between the steadfast men standing in the way. The bullets blasted straight through the Stand and splattered thick red blood all over the floor. Disturbed just winced, as he knew what was happening, and he tried to retreat, pulling with him what he could of his Stand. It was dead, though. Numbed and useless to him, just a mass of extra weight that slowed him down. So much of it was out of his body besides that he was physically weakened and could barely retreat before the female officer managed to flank him through the offices and hammered his steel-guarded face with the butt of her gun.

"You fucking monster!" she exclaimed. Disturbed glowered at her and returned with a mighty backhand to her chin. She was knocked out against the wall, but in his reduced state of power he had failed to completely kill her. Just as he moved to finish her off with his heavy boots, one of the three armed with the green light came his way, following the female officer through the office, and shone it down on Disturbed. Suddenly, his whole body was paralyzed, but in that sickening frozen state he felt an incomprehensibly full pain. Every part of him that was still his screamed in endless pain. His shriveled organs, his narrow blood vessels, his paper skin and all of his atrophied muscles echoed with that all too human weakness that The Sickness had always filled. Instantly, he passed out, and instinctively his Stand returned to his body, dragging itself weakly in like a shadow gathering onto a single point.

"Hold him down" the captain said. "This man has abused his powers, and in terms with the REO Speedwagon Foundation for Paranormal Military Research, he is to be detained until appropriate conditions can be prepared for him to be either held or executed within."

"Let's hope they get a nice, green noose for this sick fuck" the rookie officer holding the light on him said. The captain turned to Starski, who looked down at Disturbed with a distant pity. He then turned up his head and scoffed pitilessly.

_If you were the only thing standing between me and freedom_ Starski thought _then you can consider yourself a pitiful damn thing for ever having met me! I'm a man who just has to be free!_

"Escuse me, Mr. Starski" the captain said, offering a defeated sigh as he gave in to his own inner suspicions, "but may I ask you a question regarding this Dio you are affiliated with?"

"Uh, sure" Starski said. "I mean, I wouldn't say affiliated, that is, without 'forcibly'."

"Is he the same young man" the captain began "who has been reported to be the cause of the recent city-wide power outage and the destruction of a major power station, along with the killing of most of its staff?"

"Yeah, that's him!" Starski said. "If you've got the tools to do it, I bet you could take his ass, too!"

"And is he the same one" continued the captain with an accusing glare "that stole your gang from you?"

"Yeah!" Starski said, full of prideful anger. _SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK!? DAMN MIND-GAMES!!! HE TRICKED ME INTO ADMITTING MY PAST OF CRIME!!!_

"So then" the captain said, shining the light now on Starski and dissipating the arcane force around him, "_you_ are the infamous 'Lovebug' of the gang world...." Starski shielded his eyes and curled up a snarl.

_Looks like I'm caught...nowhere to fly to now..._

"You're under arrest, sir!" the captain said, his face twisted as he tried hard to hold back all the rage he truly had. "You and this creature here.....for abuse of unorthodox power!" Starski glowered under the shade of his arm. Not at his capture, but at being compared to such an incomparably depraved man as that.....


	54. The War Against 1

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo sped, stomp after tread, across the fresh cut grass made moist by the humid night's air, for the flank stricken down by a boy named Sue. He remembered that enemy, and the horrors of his power. He remembered seeing him dead, moreover, and that his body was gone without a trace the very next morning. He remembered what he could do, and dreaded to see what he had already done.

"Hey!" REO called. "Wait up, man! We're not all athletes, dammit!" Jojo slowed down, just slight enough for REO to catch up, and they ran together to the small grove of trees. As soon as they broke through the brush they stopped themselves and became extremely cautious and defensive of their surroundings. REO took a step and heard something crush under his foot, like dried pottery. He knew what had happened already, and did not look down. Jojo flexed his muscles in defense and began breathing calmly. Past his rhythmic breaths he heard someone wheezing weakly and darted his head to a half-dried body.

"Help" he hissed.

"Holy shit" REO said. He fell down right beside him and carefully took a hand to his face. His skin flaked off with each slight movement that REO made. The man opened his mouth, which was dried and crusted almost to a dusty degree, and tried to speak. "Soldier....don't struggle. I failed you by not being able to help you. I'm sorry."

"Behind you!!!" he rasped. REO's eyes shot open, a second too late. A thick, winding arm was already speeding towards him. With a whining charge another fist came and punched the arm away, sending it into a tree where it disappeared with a wet splash. REO turned around and saw Jojo with his arm extended, and extended out from the end of his curled fist was another arm, slowly vanishing into the air, the arm of The World. It returned and Jojo continued his enlightened breathing with a snarl curling his lips.

"**Come out!"** Jojo demanded. Then, from the brush, a figure stepped out. Wearing a thick leather coat and baggy cargo pants was a pale-skinned and water-slicked man. His hair was long and draped, soaked with moisture like curtains over his face, like some perverse ghostly figure out of a well. He exuded the aura of a demon and a devil while projecting a solid sphere of Stand energy that was almost visible as the space around him bent and warped malignantly. He sighed and tilted his head up. His hair slid out of the way, and his face was revealed, just as tired and dead-standing as it was when he was first fought.

"I'm just a body" said Sue "without a soul. I'm an incomplete part of the whole. Tell me, **what are you?"**

"Vengeance" REO said, laying the soldier's head down. He stood up and coiled Trapt tightly around his forearm, but Jojo placed a hand to his shoulder.

"I am Johnathan Joestar" spoke Jojo. "You and I fought once before, if you remember. Back then, I didn't have a Stand, yet I still managed to defeat and seemingly kill you." Sue remained silent and shifted his weight with a stagger to the left. "How did you survive? Who are you working for?" Still, the bizarre young man remained quiet in the face of obvious force and danger. "**Are you working with MUSE?**" Jojo growled. Sue smiled and threw out an arm with open palm.

"Look out, Jojo!" REO shouted. An ethereal hand, thick and wide, came out with all fingers open and reaching forward. Jojo leaned away and let it reach for him, everything slowing as he controlled his fall backwards. Then, The World snapped out, caught the arm in a snaring grip, and squeezed out a cloud of water. It splashed through the ground, through Jojo and the trees and REO, but it hit the soldier's body and returned to him a slight amount of his sapped strength. He smacked his lips, his mouth still desperately dry, and shook up onto his hands and knees.

"Stay down" REO commanded. "This isn't a battle for humans anymore. From now on, **this is a Stand fight!**" The soldier let himself fall and started crawling weakly away. The arm was released by The World and returned, shrunken and thin, to the Stand that had thrown it as a fist. It was Cash, a sponge-armored Stand with exposed, rusted metal-ball joints connecting each leg, knee, elbow, shoulder, and its entire head to its torso. It was an unfriendly shade of yellow, though its wrung arm was darker and more shady. Its head was shaped up top like exposed brains and beneath them were two empty, round eyes with rounder metal-carved irises within, and beneath that was yet more sponge. Its entire body was an absorbent surface that sucked away moisture and made it into pure sustaining energy.

"You're just a boy, still" Jojo said. "I can tell, even without seeing that thing beforhand, that it hasn't improved a bit!" Jojo leaned his body back and stood with his legs straight, extending forward an arm with a fist turned thumb-down and his other hand with fingers extended and spread at the center of his chest. Then, rushing forward in the exact same stance, The World posed with a bright glare in its eyes and a powerfully sadistic grin. "**Therefore, the result will be exactly the same! Prepare to lose, Sue!!!**"

"Heeeeeeeeeh" Sue laughed with a single long-drawn huff of noise. "You're really clueless. Stands don't need to be trained, dummy. You're just....**WORTHLESS!!!"** Cash attacked! Jojo slid back and straightened up, concentrating all his mental energy on controlling the blocks of The World. Cash, however, was painfully slow, and punched with the speed of an average human.

"You idiot" Jojo said, a slight sadisim leaking into his voice. **"It's useless! USELESS!!!"** Just then The World broke Cash's attack and powered forward with a storm of rapid, blinding-speed punches, crying out in a hollow voice the whole time with **_ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!!!_**

"REO!" Jojo shouted over the roar of his Stand. "Take that guy to safety, then get to MUSE and try to stop everyone from approaching her!"

"What!?" REO exclaimed. "Why!?"

"You want more bodies to pile up because of her?" Jojo growled. REO looked down at the dried and crushed husks of men strewn about on the grass and scowled. He picked the injured soldier up and carried him away.

"No!" Sue exclaimed. Cash ceased blocking with its arms and threw them out, splashing a dense field of water that forced The World and Jojo backwards. Jojo slid across the wet grass and braced himself from hitting a tree by grabbing it. Then he pushed his arm back and sprang from the tree's trunk to stop Sue, who was getting REO and the soldier in reach. The World came out and hit Sue right on the top of his chest, a blow so powerful his flesh ripple out from the point of impact all the way up to his forehead and down to where his belt tightened his pants to his hips. The boy was blown back into a tree, saved from back-breaking force by Cash's spongy body acting as a shield. Jojo stood with a powerful aura and The World beside him, both glaring Sue down with equal disdain but unequal sadism, for only the Stand itself was grinning at his pain.

"I see now" Sue said as he jumped back up to his feet. "You won't let me go....because you're scared of me, right?" Jojo cocked an eyebrow, not letting his face alter itself any further than that. "You're scared of my power...because it doesn't matter who I fight. As long as its someone like you, who can only fight up close, **I'll win! Anything in my range gets drained completely dry!!!**" Cash took its hands to the ground and, in an instant, turned the greed grass brown and sucked away all the moisture in the ground until nothing remained around them but the trees outside his reach and a rock-hard surface. "Hehehe! As long as I can stop you, I won't be such a useless boy! So come on, you! I'm challenging _you_ now, hehe! **Give me your best shot!!!**" Jojo calmly sighed and drew The World back. Sue looked up at him confused, and angered by his act, seeing Jojo get more and more calm with each passing moment while he himself got more and more flustered and enraged.

"Why?" he said. "Come fight me! Come at me! **JUST TRY PUNCHING ME AGAIN!!!**" Jojo just scoffed and snapped his fingers at Sue, pointing with his index forward and thumb up at the boy.

"There's no need to fight" Jojo said "when I know I've already won." Sue's eyes sank back out of pure rage and he summoned up his Stand again, his face sinking back into the darkness of shadows as the curtains of his hair drew to a close around him. Cash came at Jojo, but Jojo smoothly looked ahead with no intent of war at all...

* * *

The standing clandestine army of the Frozen Nights did move with tumultuous wrath and unguided rage, all of them armored in the most graphic of displayed modern-Gothic armaments. Long black trench coats that hid clips and grenades and knives and other guns, thick-padded cargo pants loaded up with metal and explosives. On their faces were gasmasks made of military plastics and horrid black metal spikes and spines. They looked like demons wielding assault rifles unjustly gained from daring raids and thieving missions on some distant and nearby army bases, and all of them aimed to insight an Armageddon on only a single target. A tall and evil young woman who haughtily made her way through the park's main walk.

"Crypt, Open!" a man shouted. He and a troop of others popped up and started firing their weapons, spraying the ground around the girl with bullets. Ankle-high dust went up and they stopped, ducking back down and moving under the shadows to a new flank while the dust settled. MUSE was unharmed, her Stand protected her, and she calmly retaliated. A swath of solid ground was cut out from her surroundings and was picked up by her many-tentacled Stand with both its arms unwound into long and writhing reaching masses.

"What a messy tactic" she said, and she threw the ground at the brush where the soldiers had run from. It crashed without a scream of pain or panic, and she knew that no one was there at her attack. Another group silently rose up from more nearby brush and opened fire. MUSE smashed her Stand into the ground and kicked up a cloud of thick dirt and rock and broken sidewalk to defend her body temporarily. With that shield in place her Stand maneuvered its parts to better protect her body, and the bullets whizzed past and around her with none of them ever hitting.

"Retreat!" one man shouted. The troop began moving away, but MUSE attacked sooner than before. From the writhing mass of tentacle shielding a single, long one shot forward and pierced into the back of a man's head, stopping him in mid-step.

"Come on!" one of the men called for him. They all ran away, leaving him to his death. He was lifted up by the force in the back of his head, swung around, and his body was **whipped straight off, leaving his head suspended in the air by an invisible strand of energy.** The others ignored it. It was simply a casualty in the path of war, another one bit the dust. MUSE took an enhanced offensive on them and returned her Stand to its whole, humanoid form. It reached down into the ground, wrist deep into the dirt, and its tentacles burrowed out like long roots.

"Is this it?" MUSE wondered. "All of this effort, and all they can do is blindly shoot at me?"

Far off, on a roof outside the park, a sniper in all black stood ready with a stolen U.S. Marine sniper rifle and extra clip of ammo. He aimed the far-seeing sight straight at the back of the villainous girl who stood out in the open, totally exposed.

"Easy kill" he said. Suddenly, somehow, MUSE turned her head his way and looked straight up at him. He didn't believe that she was looking at_ him_, he couldn't. So, he fired, thinking nothing of the coincidence, but MUSE did not fall. Her Stand extended out its legs into masses of tentacles and caught the bullet in them. But no metal fell near her. The bullet had vanished, it seemed, from the realm of reality around her. Her shroud of absolute protection gave her an arrogant smirk, and in further protection she had the extended leg of her Stand coil around her head as a protective, thick mass of moving, living, ethereal tentacles which blurred her reviled face with a warping of space.

"Fucking bitch" the sniper cursed. "Alright, then. I'll be slow, if that's what you want!" He whispered when he talked, so unnerved by her defense that he unconsciously started to hide his already perfectly concealed presence. He aimed for her leg this time, lined the shot, and fired. He saw the bullet deflect and impact on the ground right next to her leg, and he started to panic. _Why? Why am I missing? It must be her Stand, defending her! Now that she knows I'm here....no, she doesn't! I'll wait for more fire to mask my presence, then I'll shoot her right in her back!_

Another group of soldiers was ready to move into position for another offense. "Wait" the group leader whispered. "She hasn't moved since the last attack. She's planning something. Switch to shock-and-awe tactics."

"Alright" the men agreed, most with silent nodes. The men therefore spread far out but kept their target in sight. They took from their coats new weapons, grenade launcher attachments, and armed them on the barrels of their assault rifles. They took a careful measure of trajectory, channeling the careful practice they had all undergone to hone their skills with such deadly weapons, and set their positions. MUSE stood still, perfectly so, and closed her eyes with a smirk building up into a full grin. She crossed her arms haughtily and snapped her fingers, calling her Stand to wrap her completely in protective tentacles.

"Fire!" the man shouted. The sniper, being acute of all senses, heard some call being made and the dull fire of many single guns. He took aim through his scope and saw MUSE's body, warped and wriggling in the air like it was surrounded by heatwaves off of a scorching pavement. Then he was blinded by the rapid succession of explosions that sounded out like thunder, all at once, and decimated the park grounds all around the woman. A huge cloud of smoke rose up and a wind blasted into all of the men, forcing some of them onto their backs for lack of balance.

"Graves, Close!" a man shouted as loud as he could. The men that heard him picked themselves up and retreated. The whole park was shaking like an earthquake for a few brief yet terrible moments, and then it was silent and static again. The ground stopped its tremors and all the forces stopped to wonder to themselves what their efforts would yield.

"Did we get her?" one of the Nights asked.

"It's not likely that she survived" the leading man said. "Even if she did, we're all still alive. Everyone reload! We're going to go in turn next time, one at a time, each lob a grenade and keep her on the move!"

"That won't be necessary" Rosalisa said. The men turned to see her, their deadly rose of war, and they bowed down onto their knees. "I shall occupy her until Lord Dio comes to take the fight."

"Of course, mistress" one of the men said. "We shall keep the other humans from interfering."

"Of course" the man said. "You heard her! Move out! Suppress the interlopers, but don't kill on sight!" The men moved out, those that could hear. Some were still stuck in that enormous cloud of smoke that continued to spread out with the billowing night breezes. They picked themselves up weakly and tried to crawl away, the shock of the explosion having shocked their bodies, making it difficult to move at all.

"I've gotta move" one man said. He picked himself up with gun slung over shoulder and began speeding away, unaware of which way was which. Then, following a distant blast, his helmet was blown apart with a scattering of blood and skull fragments. The sniper on the roof wasn't giving up. He switched his sight to thermal vision and shot at anything vaguely human-looking within the yellow-shaded cloud of dust and smoke.

"I'll kill her!" he growled. "This whole battle is to kill her! And only her! And the man to kill her will be me! ME!!!" He fired, cocked the gun and fired again as rapidly as he dared. Each shot either missed a supposed target or felled an ally as the idiot sniper blindly fought through the thick veil that surrounded his true target. In his madness, and under the loud cover of his rapid firing, the sniper failed to hear someone behind him until the very last second. He took his hand to a knife sheathed near his armored shoulder and turned around with a slash, **headless half the way into it.** The man behind him wielded a sharp, long sword that was at the end of a powerful slash attack. He swung it again as the man's body fell to get the blood off of it and sheathed it in the scabbard hanging off his waist.

"This mission was too easy" said the man as he stole the sniper rifle and held it up against his shoulder. His whole body was concealed in **green and blue belts, from his head to his feet. It was Trip!** "Someone's screwing with me...." He looked off into the distant battlefield and disappeared with his power. "Looks like it's going to be a fun night for some unlucky bastards...." Once he vanished he stayed so and left the roof with the rifle in hand. Where he was going, and why he had come were questions that he only knew as answers to his current mission. Why was a different matter....

* * *

Jojo continued his powerhouse offensive against the aggravated and confused boy Sue by doing nothing but dodging. Cash attacked, slowed to the speed of an ordinary human, while Sue stood back with his eyes half-rolled up in pure anger, and Jojo just calmly dodged with a smile always visible on his face.

"Hey, come one!" Jojo said. "You want to prove yourself, don't you?"

"You shut the fuck up!" Sue exclaimed angrily. "I've had it up to _here_" he motioned, holding a flat palm up to his chin "with you, so if you don't shut up...!" Jojo just grinned at him while Cash continued swinging and jabbing. "I-If you don't shut up...." Jojo juked around the Stand and got up closer to Sue. Cash faded away as Sue's will to fight left and he fell back against a tree. "If you don't shut up now.....then....what can I do?"

"Nothing" Jojo said. Sue looked up at him, his face drained of all knowledge in expression, and a fearful unknown paleness covering him. "Simply do nothing. You don't have to be swayed by the influence of someone else. You have to make your own decision..."

"Haaaa" Sue madly sighed. "I already did! **I made the decision to let all my decisions be made for me, so it's alright!!!**" Jojo sensed danger. He jumped away just as Cash stepped forward with a quick jab. **"WHAT YOU SAY WON'T MATTER!!! YOU'RE ALREADY DEEAAAAAD!!!!"**

_He's gotten faster_ Jojo thought. Then he noticed that Cash's body had also become slightly thinner. Its porous yellow skin had faded in color to a more dull than obnoxious yellow and it seemed to be dryer, just as Sue had become from standing out in the open air. _The moisture must be draining from him somehow. Of course! The air! When he absorbed all the moisture from the ground, the air was naturally drawn to it to try and replace it! He's an idiot. By making the ground dry when it was already past a soaking point with moisture, he's sealed his own fate._ Jojo summoned The World again and sent it forward to block. Now Cash was faster than a human, but still not so fast as to beat The World in a close fight.

"I'm going to kill you" lowed Sue "and then I'll drink you up in **one big GULP!**"

"Who told you to do this?" Jojo demanded. The World caught Cash's fist in mid-punch, but the Stand didn't tear away. Instead it grabbed The World's arm with its other hand and held it there. Jojo sensed something terrible and tore the sleeve of his shirt to see his forearm better. It was had the finger imprints of Cash pressing on it, a direct reaction that his Stand shared, but the skin itself was under another effect. Jojo took a careful finger and rubbed across his flesh, which he found leathery and, shockingly, **dry.**

"I gave up my life" Sue began "because I was worthless, and _she_ gave it back to me! So it's her life now, **not mine!**"

"So you are under MUSE's influence" Jojo said. The World punched Cash's hand flat against its own forearm, pressing Sue's own hand with the force of a punch that sent his arm numbly swinging up.

"I told her that my life was hers to control" he said "and she called me worthless. 'A man with no will to live for himself is worthless!' And then she tried to kill me! But then, suddenly, she decided that I wasn't worthless, and she let me live! So I owe this to her. No, I don't owe anything anymore! **I've given myself to her, because she deserves to use me however she wants. And if I'm useless to her, then I simply won't live anymore!**"

"Why did you call out Dio back then?" Jojo demanded. "How long has this been going on!?" Sue was no longer listening. The World pulled its arm away and looked at it. The armor that was its skin had started to crack and peel away slowly, revealing underneath a bright blue glowing shine. Jojo's skin, likewise, had cracked and ripped open where it was especially dried, and his Ripple breathing was slowed by the painful dryness of the air.

"This war" Sue said "won't end until we're all that's left. **That's what she wants, so that's what she gets, even if a boy as useless as me has to do it all HIMSELF!!!**" In his rage, Sue ran forward, aiming to face Jojo head-to-head. He drew out a knife from the long and draping sleeve of his jacket and held it tight in his hand. Jojo shrank back, planning simply to take his arm when he stabbed forward and toss him by it, but when his mind parted from the battle already at hand, The World stepped in and stopped Sue cold like a steel wall.

_Wha!?_ Sue silently exclaimed. _A Stand...stopped me? But....I'm human! I should be able....to pass right through it! Only Stands can harm Stands, right?_ The World took Sue by his knife-wielding wrist and snapped it with only one hand. In its vice grip the Stand also rose Sue's arm up to rise his body up and, with its other arm drawn back, delivered a humungous punch straight to Sue's gut. Once it connected, The World let go of his arm, and he smashed into the dried trunk of the tree, lying frozen and embedded halfway inside the tree.

"The World!" Jojo exclaimed. "I...I know I didn't think to do that!" The World glared back at him with red eyes and a patronizing smile. "Could it be...have I lost control again?" The World crossed its arms and slowly drew back into Jojo, combining with his inner mind and flashing rage into his eyes. "I see....The World...this is my hidden power. It's a power that can barely be controlled, but when it is, it's for the sake of good. When I lose control, it turns to evil. In that case, isn't it just basic power? Pure, raw, **plainly defined power?**" Sue coughed and fell down to the hardened dirt. His wrist was shattered and a trail of blood was starting up his throat and out of his mouth. His stomach had been punched so hard that it had nearly buckled and ripped against the force. Jojo gripped his hands tight and looked down on his crippled enemy. The power of his aura moved his hair and brought light to his eyes that pierced through the darkness.

_Not yet_ Sue thought. He dug the fingers of his unbroken hand into the dirt, and through them he continued to absorb moisture. _I'm not done...not yet....!_

"Sue" Jojo began, "you're not living your life the right way. A man, woman, and even a child _must_ be able to decide for themselves. 'Is it right' and 'is it wrong' have to be up to you, not someone else! If someone tells you to kill, you have to ask yourself if you can! If you should! What any alternative may be! Just blindly following someone's commands, with no regard for yourself as a living being, makes no sense! You have a gift that can be used for the better, but you insist on using it for someone else's wishes! Isn't that just throwing your life away!?"

"No" Sue groaned. "Because...you see, for _her_, my gifts give me permission...**to do anything with my life....that I like.**" Jojo glared down at him. He shifted his weight to step forward and, suddenly, fell straight through the drained earth. Cash had reached even further down into the dirt through Sue's fingers and made a discrete, hollow hole beneath Jojo deep enough to trap and surround him up to his chest in sand and dirt.

"Ah!" Jojo exclaimed. He fell to the bottom of the pit and became quickly covered in finely-grained dirt and sand that had the moisture sucked from each and every grain. Sue carefully pulled himself forward along the ground and held his hand over Jojo's head. The swollen hand of Cash descended from it and a deluge of water suddenly struck Jojo's face.

"People like us" Sue continued from above, "who have these powers, or find these powers, are generally stronger and better off than those who don't. We are advanced, enlightened. The others are weak and ignorant of the greater reality hiding from them in plain sight. Those others **must be destroyed, so that the world may become a place for the truly powerful!**"

"Are you insane!?" Jojo shouted, spitting out the water and mud that engulfed him. "That sounds like a genocide!!!" And Sue smiled.

"**They're all just worthless boys and girls....."** he lowed. **"What's the point of keeping them around.....?"** A genocide against humanity. Is this Sue's own delusion, or the true evil of MUSE?


	55. The War Against 2

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo was trapped! The insane and nefarious Sue had him encased in quicksand!! Though he struggled to escape and keep his mouth clear of the flowing water from the Stand Cash, Jojo knew that he fought a losing battle. His feet still couldn't find a bottom to touch and kicked more and more furiously as the mud surrounded him and made it harder and harder for his body to move. In his desperation to survive, Jojo summoned The World to reach up and grab Cash's sponge-like hand.

"Hueee" Sue gleefully moaned. On contact, Jojo could feel his own hand beginning to dry, and The World drew away quickly. "You can't touch me now! You can't do anything!"

"Can't I!?" Jojo exclaimed. He took in a calming breath and activated the Sun Ripple. His body became hot as the healing energy went through him. The chill of the cold mud subsided to the hotness within him which coursed out through his own skin and started heating the mud that sealed him in. The mud dried and formed a protective shell of thickened dirt around him to keep the rest of the moist, cold mud at bay. "The World!" he summoned. The Stand came out swinging at the dry edges of the hole he was trapped in. It dug a tunnel under Sue with its fists and reached out as far as its range would allow it. Then, The World collapsed its own tunnel by punching at its ceiling, and a hole suddenly opened up underneath Sue, sinking him down to Jojo's level.

"Now we're on equal ground" Jojo said, his head and neck still out of the mud and soaking wet. "Listen to me! MUSE is evil! There's no way to justify a genocide, even if she is a Stand user! I won't allow such a thing to happen!"

"You don't have a choice" Sue said with his mouth half in mud. "It's going to happen. **The gears are already turning.**" The World came and quickly punched at Sue's face. Cash was faster to block, however, and was totally drained of its moisture, looking now dark-brown and like a lanky robot with coral armor and raisin-like head. Jojo wrenched his arm around, turning and flexing to part the hard mud encased around it to try and move it up. The mud around him that his Ripple hadn't reached yet was still wet and churning, keeping him down.

"It's no good!" Sue exclaimed. "Cash!!!" Cash came out in full, hovering above Jojo, with its arms wound back and fists clenched. Jojo looked up and braced himself for the attack, summoning The World to defend himself. The World moved up and started blocking with open palms catching the fists and its thick, awesome arms blocking the blows that went past them. Jojo's arms were frozen from the motion of his Stand, and so his arm was stayed as the mud started to close around it again.

_My Sun Ripple has died down?_ He thought. _The Ghost Ripple and Sun Ripple must be canceling each other out! If I stop breathing it, then, would The World be more powerful?_ Jojo took the second to experiment. Once he stopped breathing in his almost natural, enhanced way The World's arms managed to speed up and freed Jojo's arms to act as he willed them to. Jojo powered an uppercut up through the mud and hooked it straight into Sue's jaw. Once his concentration was jarred, along with his brain, Cash suffered from the lagging and was given a myriad of open-palm blows from The World as it kept up its offensive defense. With one arm free, Jojo reached up for the edge of the pit, but it was too far away. Jojo began sinking back down again, the mud now moistened and semi-liquid again.

_What's happening?_ He thought. _The mud around my body was dry just a second ago, now it's like quicksand again! This shouldn't happen! It shouldn't have broken down and gotten saturated that quickly after I had dried it to harden!_

"Uhhhhhhhh" Sue groaned, throaty and dry. Jojo looked down at the man, as his own head slowly continued to sink down into the mud, and saw that Sue's own body had become cracked and pale with dryness. His wet hair had become stringy and dry, his eyes were pasty and shriveled, and his mouth hung open expelling a current of water that churned with the mud.

"Stop!" Jojo shouted. "Are you insane!? You'll kill yourself!"

"What point is it?" Sue asked. **"I'm just a useless boy....after all."**

"STOP!" Jojo shouted. He knew after that the boy wouldn't listen, and he turned his focus upward. Cash was dissolving away, breaking down and the parts that broke away broke even more until they vanished entirely into thin air. Jojo knew Sue was dying, as shown by the state of his Stand, but it also meant that his mind was less focused on anything but the expenditure of his final breaths of energy. Jojo reached up and tried to grip at the sides of the pit, but it was too sheer and wet to find a grip. He tried to dig his fingers in, but past the coat of mud was pure, dried rock. His face was barely above the surface and his breathing turned to panic.

_Calm down_ Jojo thought. _I have to calm down. If I at least harden the mud around me now, I can survive. _With that in mind, Jojo reengaged his Ripple breathing and the mud around his body hardened into a shell of hard, compact dirt. He kept breathing until he saw the mud around him stop moving, a sign that his process was indeed working, and when he felt that his precautions had been met to safely stay afloat he began planning around his Stand. _The World, get me out of here! Grab onto my hand and pull me up! I'll stop breathing for just a second to give you power, but that's all I'll be able to spare!_ The World summoned itself and Jojo's body froze. It extended up as high as it could go, staying within a short distance of Jojo so that its power wasn't reduced, and grabbed hold of the edge of the pit.

Jojo held his breath, The World pulled him up out of the thick muck, and Jojo grabbed onto the sides of the pit to pull himself up, dismissing The World in the last moment. Just as he had reached a safe point, covered in mud in the open, dry air, he felt something trying to pull at his leg. He looked down at Sue's hand, which had reached up to grip at his pantleg in the final stretch of the insane boy's life. His face was aghast and shallow, all his skin cracking and flaking off in dryness.

"Waaaaaaterrrrrrr" he groaned. Jojo shook his hand off and let it drop down into the mud. The moisture began to suck into the fingertips of the boy, absorbed by what was left of Cash's form, and his life started to very slowly regain. Jojo looked down as Sue regained his breath and sighed.

"How much longer will you intend to fight me?" Jojo asked.

"Until....I win" Sue groaned.

"That isn't going to happen" Jojo said. "You may have a great power in your Stand, but you misuse it. You'll never manage to defeat me, Sue. It'd be better if you just let yourself lie down and admit your loss. You know there's nothing for you to gain by trying to kill me."

"No" Sue groaned. "It's not possible! You're not right!" Sue activated his power out of absolute fury and absorbed all of the water in the pit of sloshing, quicksand mud in an instant. His body was swollen up with water and his fragile skin started to burst and leak with pure water from every crack. **"I'll kill you even if I have to die!!!"** Jojo retreated. Just as soon as he was clear of the barren, dried ground he heard an explosion, and then the ground beneath him started to heave up. He was jarred and lost his balance, but caught a tree and turned around before he fell. The ground around the point of the explosion was buckled upward and cracked all over, but that was the whole extent of the damage. There was no righteous clearing or massive damage, just the ground sundered from the sudden boom of water that had spread out far. Jojo realized painfully well what had happened and shook the moisture from his hair. There were bits of flesh and bloody spots everywhere in the clearing. Sue had blown himself up in a last attempt to kill Jojo, like a human water balloon.

"This has to stop" Jojo said adamantly. "If these kind of people keep gathering around her.....how many deaths will she be responsible for before this is over...!?"

* * *

REO, meanwhile, continued his flight stealthily through the trees and under the cover of the brush with the dying soldier over his shoulders. When the ground began to tremor and the sounds of unrelenting war had begun, REO started his commando tactics of stealthy recovery and didn't stop despite the sudden current silence. It just made him that much more reflexive and aware of things, that much more defensively paranoid. He raced to a nearby shaded lot of trees with out-of-place bushes and took cover in them.

"Hold" REO whispered. "N-teen Echo Server Movement!" His urgent hush prompted the soldiers he commanded to come out of their hiding and encircle him. He handed off the soldier to the team medic who checked his vitals and overall condition at a glance. "He had a bad run in with a Stand user. His body's been drained of moisture, so he's most likely dangerously dehydrated. Get him some water ASAP."

"Yes sir" the medic said. "We sill have that, at least."

"Shh!" another soldier hushed.

"Quiet it with the 'shh' shit! Those sounds are the loudest when you whisper!" REO raged in a whisper. "Now, what's the status?"

"Uh, well" a soldier began, "currently, there's nothing wrong, but our rightmost flank fell to an unknown enemy."

"It could be Dio's troops" REO said. "Did you get a visual?"

"We got a constant in the last minute" one man said, his eyes in a panic and his voice picking up unconsciously from a great sense of urgency. "It's a 'constant visual', to the rightmost flank!"

"Get low, kid" REO said. "You VA too loud. Now, what about a vid?" His jargon had taken a new tone, eliminating hard sounds for the sake that the enemy may in fact be nearby.

"Guy heard 'em going here and around in nega-one" the soldier said, communicating that the panicked soldier saw them less than a minute or so ago.

"They hanging?" REO asked.

"Vultures" the soldier said. "Like a demon army."

".....Where?" REO asked, aloud. Suddenly, from the tree branches above and some of the fake bushes he knew were decoys that his own men must have set up, the black and Goth-appareled Frozen Night troops sprung up with REO's company guns in their hands. "Fuck" REO cursed.

"Just stand up, Speedwagon" one of the gas-masked men said. "We've got no intention of hurting you."

"And we didn't kill anyone yet" another fearsome, masked man said. "We're saving all our bullets for MUSE." REO stood up with his arms raised, looked around, and saw himself surrounded. Looking past the troops and his own soldiers he saw even more moving in the darkness, men in black with coats flowing behind them like liquid shadows, all with some nefarious aura of murder about them. Their arms were great in quantity, but from such a range REO couldn't make out a quality, though he knew from the explosions earlier that they were doubtlessly great.

"That's all you're here for?" REO asked. "To kill that chick?"

"We're here to soften her up" the man said. "The more a user uses their Stand in a short amount of time, the more tired they get. So, by making her use her Stand to block deadly blows, we're helping Lord Dio to come in later and kill her outright."

"'S that so?" REO said with a smirk. "Dio can't even take care of her alone? He needs to rely on a bunch of guys who look like post-apocalyptic freaks to fight the first half of his battle for him? I thought he was some kind of king to you guys!"

"Well, you're right" the man said as REO smiled with a trolling face. "Lord Dio is powerful, but **MUSE is outright Godlike in comparison. We've been told that if we kill her it's a battle won, and that she has to die no matter what.**" REO's face sank back to a cautious state, and he lowered his face so that his bowler derby hat brim cast a precarious shadow just over his eyes.

_This shit's getting serious, eh?_ REO thought. _Even Dio is letting himself be vulnerable to help in this case. Still, he isn't asking for any help, either, so he's the same old egoist in the end._ "You really need help with this? To the point where you stole my own guns? Then why not let me and Jojo fight with you? We're Stand users, and we have a whole group of them backing us up to boot!"

"Lord Dio has refused to accept your help" the man said. "However, if you choose to be philanthropic and help us mere humans avoid a perpetual harm in the course of the fighting, we'd be grateful and Dio would just assume that you're being your usual, obnoxiously chivalrous selves."

"That's a funny way of asking for help" REO said as he lowered his arms. "But, I guess it does a good job describing us. Especially Jojo. Where is the fight right now?"

"Right over there" the man said, pointing with the barrel of the gun toward the bridge. REO saw a huge cloud of dust, still clearing, and held out his hand for binoculars. His soldiers kept those, as they couldn't easily kill men with guns should they resist initially. He looked through the far-seeing goggles and saw a flaring whip of energy, something huge and grotesque like a tentacle growing up out of the dust and then immediately settling back in.

"Looks like there's a fight indeed" REO said. "I guess it's a good idea to maintain this distance but-wait! What's that on the bridge!?"

"Something on the bridge?" the gas-masked man exclaimed. "Now what, another Stand user!?"

"No" REO said with clenched teeth, "but it definitely looks like some evil bullshit!" He saw through his scopes a man sitting atop a mound of some kind swinging a meat cleaver in his hand, looking down over the center of the cloud of dust and settling smoke. The mound, in truth, and through a higher resolution scanning, was a **pile of bodies freshly chopped up, all of them wearing the same style of armor with the emblem of REO's coat of arms.** "Fuck! This means war!!" he seethed, seeing all his knights piled up so haughtily by the enemy, now made _his_ enemy as well, and by proxy Dio his ally....

* * *

Already, the battle was well on its way. Rosalisa's Evanescence hovered behind her as she held a notebook in her hand with a pen in the other, already half a page of commands written down. MUSE stood arrogant in the middle of a crater of destruction with her hands at her hips and an evil smirk on her face.

"What can you do" MUSE began "with those flimsy fingers of yours?" MUSE pointed forward, commanding the writhing tentacle mass that her Stand had become to attack. A thick cluster of tentacles shot forth and Rosalisa wrote the text of her command. Evanescence hovered down in front of her and uncoiled its fingers into ten paper-width binding sheets. Five of them gathered together in a spiral and formed a shield shaped on the sides like rose petals. The other five snaked to the side and made a reach for MUSE's body. The tentacles around MUSE suddenly reformed, all gathering together and reforming the humanoid shape of her Stand with its mouth open from joint to joint of its jaw. It grabbed all five of the paper-thin reaches from the air and clutched them together while MUSE stared out beyond its still extended tentacle arm.

Rosalisa's right hand froze up as her Stand's fingers had been immobilized. Her pen was still held in them, however, so she wrote as quick as her arm would allow itself to move and scrawled another short string of commands. Evanescence jerked its arm back and managed to get three of its fingers out of MUSE's grip. Then it used those three fingers to attack the Stand's hand and force it to let go of the other two. The Stand, however, took the blow and had a noxious green spray of blood shoot from its fingers upon contact. Rosalisa felt her fingertips get chilled as the blood dripped from the three loose fingers of her Stand. Following the commands, the Stand's fingers returned, the pinky and ring still lost to MUSE's grip.

"It will take much more than a papercut to make me flinch" MUSE said. Her Stand, with its mouth still menacingly wide, dug its feet into the ground and its immaculate body was suddenly thickened and tense with wide, sinuous muscles. It jerked on the fingers and ripped them, like the paper they were, clean off. Rosalisa's fingertips, likewise, were yanked and the tops of them ripped off. Her mind was so shaken with pain that her defense nearly fell, but she endured. She bit hard into her black-painted lip and clutched her bleeding fingers into her palm as she continued to write. "What's the matter?" MUSE called out. "Have you broken a precious nail?" The sarcasm was sickening. Rosalisa immediately relented and had her shield wall before her dismantled with a spiraling blast. The tentacles of the Stand were blasted back, and in place of the shield was a drill. Rosalisa ran forward with her Stand out in front and attacked MUSE head-on with a paper-drill attack.

"Hmph" MUSE huffed. Her Stand's am retracted. She and it crouched down, then she and it made a quick jump clear over Rosalisa's head to land behind her, on top of a piece of paper. Rosalisa stopped suddenly and reached back. The paper extended all the way from her untorn middle fingertip and into the fingertip of her Stand, a consistent but thinned finger of her Stand with the same manipulating powers. "Clever girl" MUSE said. The thin paper coiled up and latched itself to her lower spine, the furthest up it could reach. Rosalisa stopped, as did Evanescence's paper drill, and all the fingers but that one returned.

"And now what, you ask?" Rosalisa said, having turned the tables of sarcasm. "That single strand is latched directly into your spinal column between your vertebrae. If it is jarred in any way you'll be, at the very least, paralyzed for life from there down."

"You say that like it's supposed to scare me" MUSE said. "It will cut me redargless of what I do, won't it? If it breaks or if you break it yourself."

"That's right" Rosalisa said, holding out her hand. The blood from her torn nails and the stretched skin around them was still painfully evident, and seeing it just made her mind recognize the pain even more. "If anything more happens to this hand, you can consider this fight, and all others, completely over."

"You think I even _need_ my legs to kill you?" MUSE said. Her Stand came out, pulsed up in an instant with thick muscles all over, even so much so that the muscles of its brows had grown over its eyes, giving its head an eyeless, serpent-mouthed sort of appearance, all of it frightening as hell to behold. "With or without my legs, my fate is unchanged. You can do whatever you want to me, and you'll still end up losing."

"Whether I win or not is irrelevant as well" Rosalisa said. "What I do is only a prelude to the battle that will truly kill you. I only do this now to stall you for Lord Dio's sake."

"That boy?" MUSE said. "So, he's really going to face me, is he? I commend him for his courage. I'll be sure to send what's left of him to his dearest relatives, and while I'm at it, I'll just snuff out the very existence of his geneology from this planet so no more blond-haired idiots can try to meddle in my plans." Her Stand attacked, punching its arm forward with great strength, letting fly a number of tentacles from its own body with the force and speed of its punch. Rosalisa took her pen in her hand and managed to expertly write with it between her thumb and forefinger in one hand, scrawling a quick line across her notebook paper that Evanescence followed instantly. It came out in front and blocked with nine fingers wound tightly together in a rose-petal formation. She had it tied off at its end for protection, as the tentacles were already unwinding and burrowing into the paper-like fingers to get to the center and pierce through to harm Rosalisa on the other side.

Once Rosalisa knew enough of the Stand's body was within her grasp she returned all but one of the fingers to her Stand and commanded it to slice. With the one remaining finger, Evanescence straightened out a length of razor-thin paper and started making quick movements with its arm, slicing through the air. The tentacles swerved and wriggled in all directions to avoid it, but the paper lost its straightness mid-swing, curving and warping and even lengthening within each powerful stroke it made to work past the obvious defense of the tentacles. Once the attack was done the tentacles retreated and reformed into a thick, muscled arm on the Stand which bled noxious green more and more onto the ground. On the side of that one finger, Rosalisa again felt some strange chill as earlier, and looked at her hand. The area of that finger that was splashed with the blood seemed to be irritated, her skin suddenly breaking into a rash of some kind. It was the same for her other fingertips, though she managed to ignore it.

"Hmmhmmhmm" MUSE laughed in a mocking hum. She stepped out from behind her Stand, which stood perfectly still, like an evil, Gothic statue. Perhaps even something more disturbing, more like an alien Adonis sculpture, or some other unfathomable construct of unknown space. "Take a look, you silly girl" MUSE said. She held up her arm in plain sight for Rosalisa to see. While her Stand's arm was bleeding and covered with the marks and cuts that her Stand's razor blade had made against its skin, **her arm had absolutely no signs of pain or wear or tear at all. It was untouched and smooth as marble.**

"That can't be possible" Rosalisa said. "The injuries of a Stand are reflected onto its user. Is this some kind of ability of yours?"

"This Stand is a part of me" MUSE said "and yet, it is not. As long as it exists it does so as a greater extension of my subconscious mind, of my own unspoken wants and desires, my uncontrolled id. This Stand of mine fits within a categorical variety of Stands known as 'The World', and in being such a Stand, is naturally at a peak of power, and can be surpassed by nothing! It commands a power that commands dominion over all other things, natural and unnatural! It is the strongest Stand type! And mine is certainly the strongest, for its ability cannot be rivaled. Along with the power to manipulate its own body to my will and stretch as far as I can see in the form of a continuous length of tentacles, my Stand also has the ability to devour things...." MUSE's Stand snapped open its mouth and let pour out the tentacles that it held within as tongues. They slithered through the air and closed in on Rosalisa. She began running away, into what remained of the dust cloud and back out again while the tongues continued trailing her. She made a quick entry in her note and then threw the pen away. Her Stand sliced at the tongues, cutting the pen in half but not touching the reflexively evasive tendrils.

"What a pointless gesture" MUSE said. Suddenly, some sparks started to light up in the air and a sudden explosion came from the pen. The sparks made of metal touching metal ignited the ink which was super-explosive, a secret weapon that Rosalisa carried as a master scribe. The explosion didn't hurt the tongues, being part of a Stand, but MUSE became defensive as a reaction and the tongues were called back. Then she heard a clatter of metal nearby. From behind, Rosalisa had thrown and cut apart several pens, all of which were gearing to explode. MUSE braced herself with her arms in front of her face. When the first pen flashed with sparks it sent the others into a chain-reaction, and they were all blown up in a great flash of a fireball that quickly faded off into wispy smoke.

Rosalisa fell to a knee in the grass and quickly bandaged her hurt writing hand up.

"Must I repeat myself!?" MUSE shouted. Rosalisa looked back with her Stand ready and saw the woman covered in organic armor, a disgusting extension of her own mind warped around her and constantly moving as a nebulous, disconnected yet continuous whole. All green and slithering and evil, like a legion of snakes without heads. "My Stand is absolute! It has the power to devour! Matter, energy, and everything else! **My Stand takes it all away!!!**" MUSE rose her arms up to the sky and let the coils around them unwind. They flew forward, aimed at Rosalisa, and gathered into two hands with intent to grip the breath from her very throat....

I can still do something Rosalisa thought. She looked down at her finger which still held the thin paper attached to MUSE's spine. She made the motion to pull it and deliver the killing blow, but something was amiss. She pulled back her whole arm but she saw no reaction out of haughty and upright MUSE. Then she looked down at her hand, which one of the hideous hands had overlapped, and found to her horror that it was gone. **A bloody stump of a wrist was all that was left by the hand of MUSE's power, which still dripped her blood as it devoured the last inch of flesh of her own right hand.....**


	56. The War Against 3

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Jojo took a righteous flight toward the center of the grand battlefield. An explosive blast of power was shaking his mind. He knew it was MUSE, that was all it could be. She and Rosalisa were fighting, and Jojo had to act to ensure the better of two evils made the first victory as much as he could. He veered his way for the overpass stone bridge to get a strategic height advantage on the battle before he entered it. The veil of dust and smoke kicked up by the attacks against MUSE was still thick, and Jojo couldn't see what was ahead of him. He stopped and summoned The World to try and clear the smoke. His Stand brought its two powerful arms out at its sides and then clapped its hands together so powerfully that a gust shook the smoke and dust and cleared it away. Then Jojo was frozen in fear and horror. A pile of dead bodies met his eyes, all of them so heinously eviscerated and mutilated, and all of them bearing the REO coat of arms on their armor.

_What the fuck....?_ Jojo thought, so shaken by the sight he could only think in profanities. Jojo's body reacted purely on instinct as his mind remained absent under attack. He unconsciously dodged two sweeping swings of a serrated blade and then came to and rolled out of the way, regaining his footing with a vehement scowl.

"Who are you!" Jojo screamed in a rage of demand. A man appeared before him. He held a vicious, long, thick bone-saw with nastily serrated teeth that were stained with blood. He was a pale-skinned man with thin but extremely taut and defined muscles. His face was obscured with black and white paint in the pattern of a skull and his hair was spiked all over his head in long, thick studs that were dark and tipped with white. He wore studded bracelets on each wrist and leather chaps over a protective kevlar cup. He cackled like the mad-looking man he was and rolled his stud-pierced red tongue out of his white lips.

"I'm the Ripper, man!" he said in an unexpectedly smooth, low voice. "I'm the casualty-maker!" Jojo pushed himself into a fighting stance.

"Shut up!" Jojo shouted. "You did this, I know it! Who the fuck are you working for?"

"Causality of individuality" he said, swaying his legs slightly. "I'm just a man with the mind like a WMD, brother. Just a ghost-faced killer with the intention to do harm unto others. Hehehennn. You look like a pedigree man, brother. You want a free **operation?**" The Killer dashed forward and made a swipe with his saw. Jojo leaned away from it and duck as he swung it back around. Jojo planted a powerful fist into his stomach and push him away with a driving punch.

"Huagk!" he exclaimed in pain. Jojo rushed in and kicked him in the face, knocking him down. Blind with rage and righteous fury, Jojo stomped over and summoned The World. He was intent on kicking the man's neck into an awkward and broken shape as quickly as possible, a humane death for an inhumane maniac. Jojo rose up his leg but stopped rather than stomped. He halted his body in mid-motion subconsciously, stalling his murderous intent. The World withdrew, along with Jojo's killing intent.

_What am I doing?_ Jojo thought. _If I just outright kill him...then I'm no better. I'm just killing to justify my own purpose. I'm not that kind of man..._ Jojo's stall cost him a swift victory. The Killer leaped up and sliced across Jojo's shin, a deep vertical cut through his skin. Jojo was snapped from his daze and reeled back in pain. He stayed standing and didn't bother screaming.

"Strong man" the Killer said, swaying to and fro. "Most guys would be howling and screaming right now...I know I want to. But I need to fight on your level, brother. You've got some strong soul about you..."

_I can't hold back anymore!_ Jojo thought. The Killer dashed forward again, ready to thrust the sharp tip of his saw at Jojo's neck. The World was summoned. Jojo's eyes were ablaze with a fighting intent, powering the grand strength of his Stand to its current maximum. _I can't lose! There's too much at stake! For the sake of peace, I must fight a war!_ The World attacked. Its first punch snapped and broke the blade off of the handle of the bonesaw. Its second punch shattered the Killer's nose and buckled his gums so that his two front teeth were angled outward. Then its third punch made a crater of hairline fracture marks in the man's slim sternum and he was thrown into the pile of bodies with such force as to move them. The bodies tumbled over him, their harshly cut limbs falling off and rolling forward. The top of a man's head rolled from the top of the pile and rested at Jojo's feet.

"No matter what" Jojo said "I have to be able to find the strength to move forward...." Jojo had released his rage. Now that his enemy was properly defeated, he offered a quick battleground prayer for the soldiers who were lying dead in the mound. He reached into his back pocket and got out an emergency strip of gauze tape. He tore off the ripped pantleg from the knee down and wrapped his shin to keep it from bleeding. "That's the best I can do for now. I ought to stay off of it until I can heal it better...." Jojo looked off from the bridge. He saw a phantasmagorical sight just down the paved walkway. A haughty, strutting woman with a nebulous head of moving, writhing hair was walking after a quickly retreating shadow in the distance.

_Don't tell me_ Jojo thought. _Did Rosalisa...she must have fought MUSE and lost! I might not have any time left! I need to go help!_

"Oh....man...." spoke the smooth-tongued voice of the evil, ghost-faced killer. Some bodies were toppled over and rolled off onto the stone of the bridge. The man stood up, looking much worse than before, with a flat nose, bulging eyes and exposed teeth from a buckled, puckered uper lip, like a real bleeding skull-faced man. "Man....oh man. That's a strong punch you've got, brother. I didn't even see the damn thing!"

_He's not a Stand user?_ Jojo realized. _Then, he must have done this all on his own....with his own physical strength! He's a monster!_

"You broke my favorite toy, too" he said with a toothy, mad grin. "I liked that thing. I killed my first couple dozen people with that thing, not to mention this little piece right here..." Jojo started building his rage again. The Killer caught him and held the decapitated head of a horror-frozen soldier's. "Catch!" He threw it. Jojo dodged it and glanced at it in anger as it passed by him. On the passing leer, he saw something in the head's open mouth: a grenade. Jojo quickly ducked down as the grenade exploded behind him. The force of the explosion shook the bridge and the loudness rendered Jojo with a loud ringing in his ears. The killer came at him again with his inhuman strength pushing him to stay standing. He had in his hand a knife, poised to stab through Jojo's skull in an instant.

Just as he descended, with his knife tip diving downward, a swift force charged in from the other side of the bridge. A ghostly attacker stopped the man's arm in mid-motion and held it in place with a tight, powerful grip. Jojo looked up from the ringing and saw the knife. He tumbled away and looked on curiously.

"Gah!" the Killer exclaimed. "Something's on my arm! Something's on my arm!" He couldn't see it, obviously, but Jojo could. It was a little dog, blood-red colored, with rounded shoulder and leg joints and a bear-trap like mouth. Jojo had familiarized the power of such a small dog. It was, truly, the same Stand as he had seen before. The terrifying demon-hound Blood Hound Gang, now in its far reduced power state and under the command of Red Wolf. That man, stuck at a police blockade, meditated calmly in his pickup truck while listening to a tape of ocean sounds.

_Just in time_ Red thought, channeling the sights, sounds and experiences of his own Stand. _Looks like you own me one, kid. A big one, and don't you forget it..._

_

* * *

_

Rosalisa continued to retreat. Her right hand had been eaten by MUSE's terrible Stand, limiting her to issuing commands with her off hand. She kept MUSE's attacks from the dark at bay using Evanescence's remaining hand as a paper shield. The damage of her own body was reflected onto her Stand, and the rusted metal joints and tubes of its own inner workings were revealed. She had managed to stop the bleeding by tying off her wrist, but there was still a lot of blood lost. Instead of submit to the pain, Rosalisa, the faithful lady of Dio, pushed on. She found ground to stand on and turned to defend herself.

MUSE was approaching, slowly and menacingly, a predator toying with her injured prey. Rosalisa knelt down and started writing down small-print words onto a long sheet of paper. She wrote vertically from right to left, a Japanese style, but in plain english letters to maximize her writing room and minimize having the words blurred from her sweaty arm sweeping them. Evanescence uncurled its shield hand and used its long fingers to sever the metal legs of a nearby bench from the ground. Then it took the bench in hand and threw it forward. MUSE's Stand smashed the bench apart with its tightly-wound tentacle fist and then grabbed all the scattered pieces from the air using tentacles extended from its woven back.

The splinters of wood and sharp nails of metal started closing in on Rosalisa like a trap. She stayed still and let it happen. Her Stand continued to follow her orders already written and blocked by picking up a whole slab of concrete sidewalk and backing away. All the broken pieces hit into the thick concrete and smashed apart. Rosalisa was hit with a sudden surge of pain, a pulsing heat coming from her arm. Her open and bloody wrist had been tied off tightly with a ribbon, but the blood was still going to it and trying to force its way out. Her pain distracted her from the fight and Evanescence's long fingers retracted, barely holding up the slab of concrete from falling on top of the already fragile Rosalisa.

"I can smell blood" MUSE said from behind the shield, tauntingly staying away from it. "I can hear it pumping through you, and the tension of it all gathering into your veins. You didn't just seal it off already, did you? My, what a shame it would be for you to die in a way as undignified as clutched over your body on the cold, dirty ground while I cut off your pretty limbs, one by one..." Rosalisa regained her resolve. She forced wrote her commands and ran away. Evanescence pushed the concrete block at MUSE and then vanished. MUSE's Stand beat the block into pieces and snarled, bearing its ghastly writhing face of astral green with a sick snarl. MUSE haughtily smiled and pursued with a swaying step. She was in no hurry to help a girl bleed to death.

Rosalisa took to the darkness under the trees and hid. She was panting and in terrible pain, but she managed to continue pushing through it with an indomitable willpower. She carefully undid her hasty bandaging and had her Stand help her. She managed to tear off most of her dress and create a proper bandage to stop the bleeding and reduce the pain. It still hurt, but it no longer compromised her mind. She looked at her wrist, lacking a hand, and became suddenly depressed and angered.

_She must be killed_ Rosalisa thought. _Lord Dio warned me, all of us, that she is an evil being. He was right. He always is. Even if he wishes to see to her death, I must do what I can to spare him of this torrid misfortune that I have in fighting her. I may be weak, compared to him, but I am not without my uses. MUSE....I will repay you for this, and then Lord Dio shall see tenfold to inflicting a pain that no mortal has ever suffered!_ Rosalisa got out a new scrap of paper and started hastily writing down pre-fabricated battle-plans. She was to find MUSE, use Evanescence's sharp fingers to chop down a tree as a distraction and then circle around to her blind side while she isn't aware. If all else would fail, she would simply engage in a straight-up match of strength and sacrifice blunt body-blows during an exchange. The blows would obviously be powerful enough to hurt her, but also powerful enough to give her ground in a tactical retreat. She folded the paper and tucked it into the breast of her corset so it would remain safe. If it was destroyed, then so would she be...

Rosalisa took a quick glance from behind her tree cover and stayed low to the ground. She saw nothing. When she drew herself back she realized how bright in contrast her skin must appear to the sheer dark surroundings, so she wiped it off with a spare tatter of cloth from her dress. As she wiped, something appeared out of the darkness. Across from her, there was a strange figure that was barely moving. She stayed perfectly still and tried to observe it. Then, feeling compelled to investigate, Rosalisa crawled forward and peered ahead. She saw herself in a reflection, the dark tree at her back, the sliver of moonlight giving her the equally faint sliver of sight to see the mirror, **and her, creeping up from behind with a crimson grin.** Rosalisa jumped forward and spun around with Evanescence following her motion. A sweeping of four long, razor-sharp paper fingers swept just by MUSE and her Stand, then sank all at angled points into the trunk of a tree. Rosalisa landed in a slide and Evanescence jerked its fingers from the tree, separating a chunk of its wood from its body, forcing it to fall promptly over at its cut point.

The tree crashed down to the ground with a groaning thud. Rosalisa continued her plan and escaped through the other end of the small, dark grove. She managed to keep an eye on where the tree had fallen, but she still didn't see her. Then, out of nowhere, Rosalisa was stopped in mid run by a taut arm to her neck. She was thrown head-first down and nearly blacked-out. The only thing keeping her conscious was fear, knowing full well what terrible fate she was about to incur. She imagined the pain, the slow and dreadful death of all her limbs being torn off at once by the despicable power MUSE wielded. She saw the tentacles already eating her body away until nothing was left but her torso, then, silently, a slice through the neck to end her suffering......but that final detail was what shook her from her dark fantasy. She sat up quickly and rolled forward. It was a branch that hit her, not an arm, but in her state of absolute panic the mistake was simple to shake off.

Now up and running, Rosalisa caught sight of MUSE again. She, too, was running forward with a shadowy mass of writhing, reaching tentacles trailing behind her. Rosalisa increased her speed and continued forward. She couldn't command her Stand in current conditions, and kept it out of sight. MUSE threw forward an arm. Going forward across the ground, like a serpent, was a thick string of her power, a tentacle reaching out after her own throw. Rosalisa looked back and saw something lunge at her. She dove to the side and narrowly avoided a powerful diving attack of MUSE's power. The tentacle pierced into the ground and dug straight down with the speed of a bullet. Once again, pain impeded Rosalisa, as she landed on her handless wrist when she fell and was stunned into submission from the pain.

The next sensation she felt was a foot on her throat. MUSE stood over her, smiling smugly, with victory as good as hers. Rosalisa saw, beyond the nebulous hair of her enemy, a figure high in the sky. A powerful, statuesque being with brilliant wings that carried him along with the chill night winds. A bright, demonic God of a man who looked down upon the world from a throne of clouds. Rosalisa smiled for a second, prompting MUSE to push down harder. Then, on reflex, MUSE leaped away and avoided a decapitating swing made by Evanescence.

"What's this?" MUSE said. Rosalisa's Stand had summoned itself and hovered over her stunned body, holding up its curled paper-fingers like blades. MUSE gathered together the dark tentacles surrounding her feet into the shape of a humanoid monster, just as Evanescence attacked. It thrust all five fingers in and through the Stand's body, just as its last holes closed up. The tips of the fingers then folded into sharper creases and started rapidly stabbing the Stand in the back. The berserk ethereal being hardly noticed the direct attack from behind and rose up its arm. The fingers then changed course, lengthened, and managed finally to gain Rosalisa an honorable blow. Five shallow bleeding wounds, all in a perfect pentagon pattern, were stabbed into MUSE's midriff, just before each paper finger was torn off and Rosalisa's fingers likewise all broken near their tips.

_Lord Dio_ Rosalisa thought, _please heed my prayer. Save your flower....before her blossom is cut from the stem...forever....._ MUSE became cross just then. Her anger made her fierce scowl seem all the more demonic and made her Stand howl and writhe like a living skeleton covered in snakes....

* * *

REO had tried his hardest, but lost track of the battle quickly. He and his soldiers, under forced escort of Dio's Frozen Nights, made a quick stealth dash through the trees a fair distance from the main walkway where they knew the battle was taking place. They drew unknowingly closer and closer to the painful struggle, all under the lead of the dignified yet hesitant REO Speedwagon.

"Alright" REO said to the company behind him, "let's keep moving towards the REO blockade."

"What about us?" one of the Frozen Nights grunts asked. "You just want us to get within range of your damn sentries, don't you!"

"We're trusting you, Speedwagon" the lead man said. "Just do whatever you think will benefit all of us in this battle."

"Well" REO said "we could start by having everyone armed that can hold a gun. It's obvious that we're all trying to survive in the same way here."

"We'll cross that bridge soon" the lead Night said. "For now, worry about guiding us to safety first." REO nodded, but when he faced away he scowled.

_These guys are being difficult_ REO thought. _I need to get us to the convoy ASAP. At least there I can be under some security._ REO continued on, leading the group as the unarmed point-man, and led the men through a short grove of trees. He had to stop and gaze down at the ground before him, which prompted the Night soldier to question the sudden halt. They both looked down at the broken body of a Frozen Night soldier. His lower jaw was gone, chopped clear off of his face, and his eyes were rolled up.

"Damn" the Night said. "If we could fight....if only we could fight on their level."

"Don't sweat anything" REO said. "Let's just see quickly if he has anything on him." REO bent over, nodding his head in a quick moment of respectful silence, then started a quick search over the man's body armor for useful equipment. The man's eyes rolled back down and beheld REO, a known enemy, rooting around on his body. Then the man's eyes turned to fury in the darkness. REO looked up and froze upon seeing his hazed, shaking, conscious eyes glaring him down, but the calm and smooth REO managed to push through with a plain and straightforward look.

_Okay_ REO thought. _This guy is....alive. His jaw's off, but he's alive. That's freaky._ REO saw the man start blinking hard. REO leaned up and over so that the dying man's conscious eyes couldn't be seen by the other Nights nearby. _Just remain calm. This guy's got to have something on hand that I can use to signal-_ REO's eye was caught on the man's hand. Somehow, he was moving and drawing out a weapon at his hip. _SHIT! He's gonna get a gun!_ The man drew out a small gun, barely fitting in his hand, with a wide, short barrel. _Wait a minute, I think that's a flare gun! That's perfect!_ The man started aiming the gun up with a shaking, pained arm at REO. He had the intent to fire it at point-blank range. REO reached to grab the gun, but he saw the trigger getting pulled back steadily. Rather than risk discovery, REO swept his chain Trapt to snag the man's arm and push it up. He pulled the trigger and fired a bright flare straight up into the air. The signal sent out was seen clearly by everyone in the park and surrounding area. The grove was lit up by the proximity of the bright-red light and from far across the battlefield the shades forming the men in the trees could be seen by keen eyes.

"Looks like quite a battle over there" a soldier wielding a powerful sniper-rifle atop one of the carrier vehicles said. "You're right, sir. REO and the Nights are colaberating. Jojo seems preoccupied with some guy on the bridge in the middle of the park. I lost those girls though."

"And the lad?" the other man, unmasked and wearing a checkerboard-pattern top hat asked.

"Well just look up" the soldier said, pointing to the sky. Zeppeli looked up with a smirk and saw a shadow circling in the sky.

"What he's doing is beyond me" Zeppeli said. "That brazen young man always has to have a plan, but even then he never seems to follow it."

"We can't forgive him for using everyone else first, can we?" the soldier said. "Well, in truth, it doesn't matter to me at all. My job here is almost over."

"I appreciate your fast acting" Zeppeli said. "I was told by reliable sources that you are quite the expert." The soldier, all his body under armor and dark colors, was just as hidden as he would always be. He had raced from end to end of the battlefield, encountering a terrible monster on the way and assisting the brave young knight fighting it, all without ever being seen thanks to his powers. It was Trip, hidden in REO soldier armor stolen from a soldier found dead in the field of war.

"Well, good to know my reputation precedes me" Trip said. "In any case, as soon as I hand you this gun, our contract is fulfilled and I'm out of here. Things are getting to damn crazy for me."

"You sure you'll stay the way you are?" Zeppeli asked. "Flitting from one place to another in a field of war? Even if you can become invisible, won't the time come when your true colors are revealed?"

"Unlikely" Trip said. "If I'm forced to pick a side or die by both, I'll already have a plan. I'm never without contingency."

"An expert through and through" Zeppeli said. "Very well. I'll take that rifle, then."

"If you say so" Trip said. He tossed Zeppeli the sniper and waited for him to catch it. "I'll be around. You know how to call me if you need to...." With that, Trip disappeared yet again, using his powers to physically vanish from all possible visibility. Zeppeli looked on and smirked as Trip left, not watching him leave but appreciating his departure. Then Zeppeli took a knee and held the rifle up to peer through its pinpoint accurate zoom sight.

"Let's nip this in the bud" Zeppeli said. He aimed down the sights toward the darkest corner of the park, through the trees that serendipitously led a path straight across the whole park, where stood a tall woman with nebulous hair casting a menacing shadow over a cowering girl on the ground....


	57. The War Against 4

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

A medley of events occurred. MUSE stood over her conquered foe, Rosalisa, whose eyes had gone all but blank. She poised herself to make the finishing blow and erase the girl's life from the very grass she lie upon. Then, suddenly, a boisterous blast echoed through the park, one with such splendid ripping tenor and blasting tone that MUSE couldn't help but smile at it. What was once silence was a roaring shout of power as Zeppeli fired his perfect shot. In the split second that the bullet traveled through the air to its target, in that brief instant of time that flashed by unnoticed by those still caught in the thick of battle, MUSE moved. She was jerked aside by her protective Stand which took the bullet straight through its head. The writhing mass above its own chest exploded suddenly! **Her Stand had been hit by a bullet!**

Zeppeli, far across the battlefield, smirked his arrogant lips and discharged the shell from its chamber.

_Even with such little knowledge_ Zeppeli thought as he reached for a new bullet _we humans can go for such an incredible length! Knowing next to nothing about the Stand Sword, we were able to simulate its abilities in these bullets! **Stand Bullets.** REO's power is not used unwisely._ Zeppeli reloaded the huge rifle positioned on the top of a transport, transforming it more into a long-range anti-infantry tank than a simple armored car. He aimed in the same spot and focused his rifle. The Stand had disappeared, along with any trace of the girl. Rosalisa was still lying, her mind numb with horror, but alive. Zeppeli took a hand to his headset and hailed upon all active transmitting troops.

"There is an injured VIP near the rear of the park" he reported. "Dressed in black, losing blood."

"This is Speedwagon" REO reported. "It's probably Rosalisa. I'll get on it. Where's Jojo?"

"At the bridge still" Zeppeli said. "He seems to be fighting someone." REO growled into the radio.

"Alright then, REO out!" the communication ceased. Zeppeli looked up into the sky. The night was dark and the moon was shining brightly, as if trying to break through all the smoke and confusion to bask those diligently fighting in its cool, silver light. However, Zeppeli had to squint to justify what he saw. The sky lacked something important, the shadow of Dio.

_Is he moving?_ Zeppeli thought. He started scanning for MUSE, but the light given by REO's sudden flare was dying down. The corners of the park that were once too dark to see were again made dark. Shadows dominated the night, once again. In a calming lull of silence, Zeppeli took careful stock of the situation. Then, with a sigh, he holstered the rifle onto his back and departed with a leap off of the truck and onto the grass. His contact with the ground sent rippling waves of motion through the soft green grass. He closed his eyes and began a deep and rhythmic breathing. _Let the wheels turn, young men. Destiny shall come full-circle in the end._ When his eyes opened there was a trace of difference in them. No longer the calm and decisive eyes of a wise and eccentric man whose very life was dedicated to the development and harnessing of a great power. Zeppeli's eyes turned to vengeance and unguided strength. **They turned mean and strong, like a monster's eyes in their brightness.**

As the shadows moved, MUSE moved with them to use their protection to her advantage. She hid behind trees, snuck through the bushes and made mad sprints through the open on her own. In the end she had reached a small and open grove where a few men were face-down and dead around her. She was panting and taking in the sublime stench of lost human life with a smirk. Her smile fell as she tried to summon her Stand. What responded was a pile that seemed to fall from her own body and surround her. Like a moat of snakes, what was once a proud and evil-looking creation was reduced to a broken form of inconsistent tentacles. It had lost its center.

_This is the price I pay_ MUSE thought _for power, I suppose._ She picked herself up and let her Stand stay near her. It moved with her, like a crawling mist at her feet, and reached for the bodies nearby. She smiled. "That's right, you can grow if you eat. So eat, then. Eat until you're better." MUSE walked over to one of the bodies lying with a deep red stain in its back. The tentacles of her Stand greedily reached and grabbed at the corpse to eat it, however they did so. They first took hold of the helmet and scraped it off, bit by bit. Under the pressure of the constant movement and pulling of the tentacles, the body seemed to twitch. MUSE looked down, noticing the corpse moving, and stopped her tentacles from continuing. She summoned them all to her, near her feet, in a thick and quickly-moving blob. Then, at the sound of the slightest rustling from behind, MUSE rose a wall of tentacles to block a gunshot. Three men stood up, including the one whose helmet had been nearly eaten, all armed with high-caliber handguns.

"Surrender!" they exclaimed. MUSE snarled and tried to attack. Both of the other men shot at her and MUSE shut herself into a shell of warped air. The men could see the intense pressure around her, they could see the very effects that her Stand had by hitting the cool night air. However, they refused to move back. They had her locked down perfectly, just according to plan, and they weren't even aware that her Stand itself was down as well. One of the men took out a flaregun and fired it straight up. A light-blue light soon drowned the area, and in its pale radiation the sight became clear. The light revealed MUSE's Stand around her and gave the men a greater perspective of what they fought.

"Stand ground!" one shouted to the others. They tensed up and cocked back the solid hammers of their handguns. MUSE, still slightly visible past the thick ethereal color of her own Stand, slowly lowered herself and sat cross-legged on the ground. Her Stand came in closer around her and became thicker.

"Stand up!" one of the men shouted. "Right now! Stand up!" MUSE smirked. The shield thinned out on all sides, staying contingent and solid regardless, but thickened enough on one side to shoot out a long and narrow piercing tentacle. The soldier it was aimed at rolled away from it and hid behind a tree. The tentacle wrapped itself around him and locked him against the tree by his chest. Then, at MUSE's calm mental command, it started to crush him.

"Urgh!" he shouted. "It's got me! Call for backup!"

"On it" the broken-helmet soldier said. MUSE turned to him and had the thick of the extended tentacle's base burst out with a wide and scattered blast of blunt-ended tentacles. He was hit in multiple places and thrown back against a tree. The man behind MUSE managed to see, just for a split second, an opening in her shield and shot at it. It closed back up, stopping the bullet with a fleshy impact, and caught MUSE's attention. She turned just enough to see him from the corner of her eye. He wasn't moving. He had made a mistake and accepted it, but refused to giver any ground. She continued to crush the other man against the tree, left better for dead by his comrades, but ignored the man she had hit so hard.

"We've got her" the soldier said. "Send backup."

"I'm on my way!" Jojo replied. "I see your signal! I'm almost there!"

"Jojo!" REO called over the open channel. "Don't be reckless! And don't get close to her! She's got scary powers! She's already downed Rosalisa!"

"**Has she now?**" said a frightful voice. All the men on that channel seemed to stall in fear at the voice, so measured and powerful, but MUSE, overhearing the soldier's communication, grinned madly at it. "In that case, I have already arrived."

"You..." REO said. "Don't tell me...how'd you...?" Jojo, just outside the border of the trees, just within sight of MUSE in her protective bubble, stopped dead in his run and looked up. Standing on the highest bough of a well-trimmed tree, wearing his royal colors of the night, **hidden behind a stone mask and holding to his mouth a decapitated soldier's head, was **_**Dio.**_

Jojo's thoughts rang with confusion. Excitement for the battle. Contempt for his enemies. Stubborn anger towards Dio. Relief that Dio was finally there. In the end, fear seemed to be his biggest emotion. It masked all the others and kept him from moving forward until Dio had actually jumped from the tree and stood between him and the image of MUSE, their enemy. Jojo grit his teeth and began running forward again in a wide circle, avoiding Dio's back where his black wings were spread open and wide...

* * *

Dio had not descended into the thicket of chaos unaware. He had seen Jojo approach and he witnessed MUSE's power up until then. He had monitored the battlefield and circled it ceaselessly, impatiently waiting for his chance to strike. Under his mask his grin stretched in sheer excitement.

_Do what you will, Johnathan_ Dio thought, _but she is mine to kill. I won't let you interfere, not even to help me, if you would chose to save this beast's life!_ Dio looked down at MUSE, hidden away in her wriggling shell. She swung a tentacle at him. SoaD leaned off of its user and caught it in a bladed grip. With a tight squeeze the tentacle was ruptured and burst open. Then, with a flash of speed, Dio retracted his Stand's arm as the liquids from within the enemy Stand splashed around. Dio hopped back, floating across the ground almost, and glared through the eyeholes of his ancient mask.

"Hmph, so it has acid blood" Dio observed. "That shall make things a bit troublesome. However, it's not something I didn't plan for..." Dio held his arms over his head, then quickly swung them down. SoaD, fully summoned in its vicious form, followed his motion and drew out its long, bladed nails. Sharp as daggers and a full meter long each, ten adamant, black blades to fight the creature with. MUSE's Stand drew back the injured tentacle and drew it into the writhing husk. Three more shot out to attack. Dio jumped away from them. SoaD kept close and fled as well. The tentacles went only in a straight line but swung at him as they drew back. Dio jumped out of the way, them being at chest height and no lower.

_So she can't see me_ Dio realized. _However, it's obvious that she can sense me if I'm nearby. Perhaps by heat or by motion, it doesn't really matter. I know how I can trap her!_ Dio dashed forward. Once he was close enough he sent his Stand to make two clean slices at MUSE's Stand with its sword-fingers held together. The open gaps revealed MUSE for a split second as she glared over her shoulder at her encroaching enemy. Dio stepped around his Stand and threw a knife into the gap just before it closed. Her Stand roared in a strange way, vibrating all of its parts together to make a low, rumbling sound, which sent Dio reeling back in pain. _She can do this too? A sound attack?_

"I won't lose to you" MUSE hissed. She stood up and her tentacles followed her. Her shell diminished and the gross mass started to surround and writhe up around her. The tentacles constantly moved from her feet and then billowed up like a mound of seaweed at her face. She was vehement, her eyes so full of dominating rage, and a shallow cut bled on her cheek. She held her hand across her chest to cup her wound and scowled at her foe standing so haughtily upright near her. "You are nothing but a spec to me. Merely some dog shit in the middle of the road. I will move past you. **You can't stop my birth-rite purpose.**" MUSE, in her anger, let her Stand fly out. All the tentacles reached out at once to Dio and SoaD, reaching and crawling through the air. Dio jumped away and outraced the reaching grip of MUSE's Stand. He jumped in his dash and spun in the air to throw a knife at the enraged girl. She did not move. Her tentacles caught it and devoured it, smothering it out of existence entirely. "Are you a coward, Dio Brando? Your prey is standing before you, yet all you can do is run?"

"I am a solitary killer" Dio shouted "but I'd never hunt a beast like you alone! **Fate conspires against you, bitch!**" As Dio's glaring eyes hit MUSE with all of his sadistic intentions, a sense of inescapable danger suddenly seemed to overwhelm her. She looked back and saw the rock-hard knuckles of an angry fist flying at her. Having no time to react and no power to dodge, MUSE took a full-powered punch to the face from the vindictive Johnathan Joestar and was sent tumbling over herself into a tree. Her head hit against the bark and dented it. She was knocked unconscious and her Stand vanished likewise. Jojo found himself holding a firm and steady arm out while the rest of his body moved in careful breathing motions. His mind quickly calmed but his blood remained at a constant, blazing boil. His Stand was behind him, its fist drawn behind his, empowering his will without adding to his own strength.

Dio approached, keeping a breadth of distance from MUSE, and stood just outside of Jojo's furthest Stand reach. "Well done, Jojo" he said. "I didn't think you had it in you to hurt a girl."

"I don't" Jojo said. "Then again, what I'm fighting isn't exactly a girl, is it?" Dio removed his mask and secured it onto the side of his belt. Jojo kept his own face stern and void of any readable emotion for his rival to take advantage of while Dio simply smiled and kept his eyes half-open.

"I am not a man to thank unwanted help" Dio said. "Still, you came at a good time. I planned this all quite well."

"Planned?" Jojo said. "Aren't you just taking advantage of the situation?"

"Oh that would be easy to do" Dio said. "However, if I left everything up to chance, then I would be chancing myself out of being able to enact a perfect scenario. **I can't have anything less than a perfect victory over this beast.**"

"Dio" Jojo began, "I can't trust you. None of us can. But for once, even if it's temporary or if it hardly even starts, we should work together. Whatever is going on is something greater than ourselves. It's not about gang wars or territory control. This is something serious. **This is a war!** If MUSE was able to get so many people to fear her, including _you_, then she must be a seriously dangerous person! Whether we kill her outright or not won't matter if she has a fanatical resistance under her control!"

"I believe you, Jojo" Dio said. "Killing her would be an easy fix, the only one I'm willing to go for at this point. However, my battle with her is strictly personal at this point. Whatever war she is trying to incite is arbitrary. You can deal with all of that." Dio turned to the girl's violent body, a blood trail leading down from her mouth and from the cut on her cheek that Jojo had punched open even further, and kept his back to his rival. For once, without any fighting to keep him warm, Jojo felt the chilling rush of the cool night's air. "If we team up, no one will be able to stop us." Dio said. He turned back to Jojo with a gleam in his eyes. **"I find that rather interesting!**"

"Then we're agreed" Jojo said, extending his hand. "We work together to end whatever MUSE is."

"Agreed" Dio said. Just as they connected hands, a vicious aura captured them. It enclosed them in a dark and cramped space filled with an incredible sense of pressure that halted their hearts. MUSE picked herself up, surrounded by moving, shadowy growths. All of her excessive spiritual power seemed to congregate at once and the shining white-eyed phantom was summoned up once more. Made of tentacles all bound together, it looked like a brain morphed into a humanoid form. MUSE's Stand, in her subconscious rage, had once again been pushed into its full-power form. **It drooled an acidic substance from its mouth which burned deep holes in the dirt and growled deep, throaty murder at the two men before it.**

"You are both utterly hopeless" MUSE said. She stuck her head up arrogantly and leaned her back against the tree. "You don't even know why you're fighting! Hopeless, stupid little boys." Dio and Jojo dashed apart, taking up separate angles at a distance to surround MUSE alone.

"What are you saying?" Jojo lowed. Dio was grinning with a white-fanged rage.

"I gave up more than you can fathom" MUSE said "in order to gain the power necessary to follow through with my goals. I gave up myself, my womanhood, _my humanity_ in order to discover and unleash my fullest potential!"

"Be aware, Jojo!" Dio called. "That Stand of hers is immensely dangerous! **It has the power to consume material through the acid-like substance that coats each tentacle. It can extend its range and perfectly control each individual tentacle at any time!**"

"How can we fight it" Jojo wondered "if we can't even touch it?"

"Precisely" MUSE lowed. "This is my ultimate savior! _**Cydonian Knight!**_" Her Stand howled. A disgusting and powerful roar that shook the air and hit both of the men like iron to their throats. The fiend didn't stop shouting until the bark of the nearby trees had peeled itself off and space was totally warped by its power. The demon's fanged mouth stayed open and howling, hungry for blood and carnage...

* * *

REO and the band of soldiers, both his and the Nights, arrived at the scene of a grim and bloody struggle where they found Rosalisa tirelessly resting on the ground. Her right hand was gone and the fingers of her left hand were all broken near the tips. Her nails bled as they had been split apart from the vicious attack. Her injuries seemed to be more and more treacherous and painful, reaching down to unseen areas of her body, and REO was all but certain that she would not make it.

"She looks like shit" REO bluntly proclaimed. The leading Night took to her and checked her throat.

"She's alive" he said "but she's in grave condition!"

"I can call for an emergency vehicle" REO said "but as of now, I wouldn't be surprised if they're all completely crowded!"

"Do it anyway" the man lowed. "If we were to fail to protect our gilded black rose because of _your_ incompetence, then we shall hold you solely responsible for her ill state!" REO gulped. He could see how serious and how determined he was to save her life. So much so, in fact, that REO could even see his will to die right then. He understood his pain and reached for his tactical radio.

"This is REO Speedwagon" he called. "We have an emergency Stand-victim to retrieve. One 'Rosalisa' of the Frozen Nights. Consider this a priority rescue. Over."

"Negative, commander" a voice answered back. "All available transports are already there and all troops are already dispatched. If there is someone who can help, he's either with you or not." REO grimaced at the air. He hadn't calculated his full-scale attack being a risk to outside injuries. If anything, he thought he could prevent them by exercising his utmost level of control over his highest count of active forces. REO turned to his soldiers, a thin but strong pack that still managed to remain.

"All medics present" REO began "attend to her." Three men split from the group and rushed to Rosalisa's side. She groaned with the terrible pain already waking her up. She was thrust from her dark distress of nightmare back into the living world too quickly and immediately panicked with her eyes still half-open. She summoned her Stand. "Woah, watch out!" REO shouted. "Her Stand's active!" In Rosalisa's eyes, everything turned dark and evil. All she could see was her attempted killer, the lithe and venomous figure of that horrific woman, MUSE. And, in her berserk state of mind, her instincts took control of her Stand and forced it into action. Without taking written command, adapting itself to its own user's loss of her hands, Evanescence snapped its remaining fingers into razor-sharps solid blades and drew its arm back to swing them.

"Shit, get out of there!" REO shouted. "She's attacking!" One of the medics was brave enough to listen. The concerned man of the Nights quickly dove out of the way as well. Five thin lines appeared in the ground. Five thin, straight cut lines. The men who were inside of those lines slowly fell apart as they had been **cleanly and thinly sliced by five wicked-sharp blades.**

"Shit!" the Night exclaimed. "We didn't think Rosalisa was capable of commanding her Stand without writing down orders for it!"

"Maybe she isn't!" REO said. He summoned his Stand, Trapt, to coil into his hand and extend for a length out of it. He began swinging it over his head to build its momentum and took careful aim. Evanescence still hovered protectively over Rosalisa's semi-conscious body, glimmering in its power. REO saw its weakest point, where the rusted joint of metal and wires had been torn apart on its right arm, and threw his chain straight at it. Evanescence moved its arm and Trapt followed to hook onto it like a metal snake. Now with his chain of control attached to the Stand, REO forced Evanescence to the side and yanked it to the ground. The Stand vanished as Rosalisa awakened, now out of her panicking mind and into her usual, clear-thinking one. Her first motion was to scream out in pain.

"Rosalisa!" REO called. "Calm down! You're seriously injured, but I'm going to help you!"

"Where is she...?" Rosalisa asked in a hush. REO looked back into the park and saw the light-blue beacon still shining overhead, a long-acting flare which exposed the forms of nearby Stands.

"Far enough away" REO said. "It seems like she's been targeted. Who knows who she's fighting now?"

_Lord Dio?_ Rosalisa thought. She looked up at the blue flare light and felt a twinge of hope strike in her chest. _He saved me after all..._ Rosalisa was picked up by her fearless, masked Night and carried away into REO's group.

"Alright" REO began, "we have the park surrounded, so there's bound to be a transport equipped with medical supplies nearby." REO took a final look at the gore of his men killed in action, murdered by blind rage rather than justifyable villainy. He sighed and offered them his attention and respect for only the brief moment he could spare. Then he returned to the troops and began commanding them all again. "We've got precious little time! Now get moving! Find a covered vehicle and get her treated!"

"Of course" the Night yelled. His troops followed, flanked by the unarmed soldiers of REO. He looked back and saw their unwavering form as they all ran together with REO defensively taking up the rear of the group. _Why is he helping us? We aren't allies. We won't ever be. So long as Lord Dio and Johnathan Joestar continue to fight, so shall we continue to fight along side our Lord against anyone who opposes him! Is he trying to win us over with kindness? Is he so stupid?_

Rosalisa, however, thought differently. _Thank you_ she thought. _I can only imagine that someone who is so close to the man known as Jojo would be this indiscriminately kind. I am glad that there are people like you so close by in this battle._ So, without incident, REO reached a group of transports and had Rosalisa escorted in to help her body as much as possible. Just as the doors were shut and all was seeming to go well by REO, his radio blared on with an emergency whining signal.

"Mayday! Mayday!" it called in panic. REO picked it up and held it out before his face in shock. "This is Brad Bangalter! Our transport crashed into a building and that crazy man-lady woke up! She's fighting that...mafia guy!"

"What?" REO shouted. Within the evacuated circle of the city, some several blocks that surrounded the park where the intense war was being fought, an REO transport had crashed front-first into the side of a building. The driver was dead behind the wheel from the whiplash and the back, full of high-tech equipment, was torn apart and half-covered in frost. Within that building, with Brad hiding out of sight with a radio in his hand, Astella and Mr. Network stood opposite each other with their Stands summoned. A knight in shining silver-blue against a crackling whip of lightning. The war continued as forces collided and powers resonated...


	58. The War Against 5

Disclaimer: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and all equally bizarre concepts and characters belong to Hirohiko Araki. Original characters and other concepts (as noted) are copyright of me.

* * *

Certain symptoms are usually coupled with a Synchronicity Event among regular Stand users. They tend to vary, but commonly associated with a major Synch Event are: intense muscle soreness, especially in the neck, temporary numbing of the extremities, extreme headache, unprovoked Stand actions and a constant sense of paranoid danger. Regular people, who happen to be within the proximity of a Synch Event, are prone to blackouts, brought about more often in those who suffer from low blood-pressure. The residual effects include an increase in cortisol, an adrenal hormone, due to instinctively provoked alertness and can issue heart attacks in those who suffer from high blood-pressure. Those unaffected but within a certain radius could be suspected to have, whether they know it or now, Sleeper Stands of a high grade in power.

The city was laid down a final time upon the clash of MUSE, Dio and Jojo. Their meeting energies sent a cascade of power throughout the entire city, and its outskirts, causing an enormous lapse in the general population's lucidity. Those still awake were crippled with pain and those who fainted either escaped death and became comatose or died in sudden cardiac arrest or stroke. It was an inexplicable epidemic, a supernatural Armageddon occurring right under the noses of the collective unknowing innocents. Though they knew this, the power that were could do nothing for it. Three titans of power had met and created a pillar of energy that pinpointed itself in the unlikeliest of places. An arcane energy flooded through the streets from the park, a vivid deluge of clashing forces. An unnatural, sweet-smelling wind swept through the city streets, like fresh morning grass or the fine scent of oak.

Everyone felt it, none more so than the few Stand users furthest from the point of impact. Red Wolf, still in his truck, had parked himself a safe distance from the main area of battle and fought with his still formidable Stand Blood Hound Gang. However, the tooth-grinding agony he was in prevented him from moving at all and shattered his concentration on the battle his Stand had been fighting.

_Damn_ he thought, curled up in the seat of his car. He forced open the door and stumbled out. The blockade had simply fallen. Everyone still detained and quartered from entering the city limits by the police, _including_ the police, had either been stricken unconscious or was writhing in debilitating pain. Red clutched the back of his neck and forced a crack with a quick jerk of his head. He rolled his head the other way and sounded off several quick, loud cracks before swinging his head back again. He sighed and looked at the pain all the people were in. _This is exactly what I was fighting against. All the gangs of this city, all the upstart punks and hotshot idiots that think they can hold a matchstick to the elected officials who make it their life mission to serve the citizens of their cities. I was fighting to stop them! To prevent something like this from ever happening! The police beaten down by migraines, the people all forced to the ground in fear and pain. I'm a Freedom Fighter! I can't tolerate injustice to **any extent!**_ Summoning up all his might and courage, Red shook his body as if to shed it of the discomfort the uncontrollable energy had pushed to him.

Then he leaned back, fists tightly clenched, and let out a bone-chilling wolfen howl, harmonized by the frightening ethereal cry of his massive lupine Stand at his side, Blood Hound Gang!

_**HAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOHHHH!**_

His brave called stirred the hearts of those around him and shook them from their pain. The police officers looked up to see a taut, muscular ex-Marine standing over them with a shining light in his eyes, reflecting the light of the moon down on them.

"Stand up, men!" Red demanded. The police shot to their feet, as well as some of the still shaking men and women. "Tend to the fallen and give the dead their rites. This is no time to lay around! There is no nap-time on the battlefield!" The police, without questioning his harsh demanding tone, went to work securing the area, checking on pedestrians and keeping peace from escaping. Two were dead, an older man and lone, heavyset woman. Red lowered his head in their respect, but his Stand was still summoned and on guard. It turned and growled in the direction of the park, its lips curling up to reveal its rows of sharp, white fangs.

_I'd better be off_ Red thought. _I can do a lot more good up close than I can this far away._ Red got into his truck and BHG jumped into the back.

"Wait a second!" a police officer demanded, moving in front of the truck. "Wait! Who are you?"

"I" Red began, hesitating to draw from his thoughts, "well, let's just say I'm a vigilante in training. Once I fully master my kick-ass super powers I'll hit the streets and take on crime. How about that?"

"Um..." the officer said. Red slowly pulled his truck away and through the barricade of cars. He was inbound to the city with a mission in mind, though the officers couldn't understand it. They just went on with their business of keeping the remaining public at bay and under protection. BHG, from the back of Red's truck, kept its head pointed in one direction, still growling.

"Yeah, I have an uneasy feeling too" Red said. "I guess it'd be weird if one of us didn't since we're both me..." Red turned with a screech, following BHG's snout and his own pull of instinct, making his way further and further into the city toward the park.

He wasn't, however, the only one to be affected by the sudden pulses of energy. Starski had escaped arrest by the luck of being immune to the apparent blast of power that rendered the captain holding him comatose. He welded through his cuffs and collected himself in preparation to leave. Most of the other officers were either debilitated or unconscious, and the cell next to his that contained the crazed villain was aglow with a bright green light.

"There's no argument to be made now" Starski told himself. "That living shit can die in here, for all I care." With anger, Starski left, walking straight past the cell and to the door. He found it sturdily locked and summoned his Stand. He felt a strange twinge in his arm, followed by a numbing pain, like something had smashed his funny bone suddenly. "Gah, damn! That hurts! Damn, man, that hurts! What the hell?" Starski observed the arm of his Stand. Run DMC had tested its limits too much already, and its joints had started to glow with a heated hue. Starski desummoned his Stand and walked to the captain's body. His face was stunned in an almost perverse look of joy, a freakish portrait of ecstasy complete with blooshot eyes and a sliver of drool coming from his frozen grin. Starski grimaced and began hesitantly searching the captain's uniform for a ring of keys.

"Come on, come on" he said. He searched the wide-hipped belt, the pockets front and back, and even under the captain's cap. No keys to speak of, save for those fitting a handcuff or car. Starski decided to keep the car keys, assuming a vehicle was near enough to steal, and sighed. "In honor of you own diligence to keep the peace, I swear on my honor as a man that I shall not return to my former life. There are enough terrible-ass people in the gang underworld, the least of which should be me. I'mma steal myself some nice clothes, whip up a costume and return to the streets as a daredevil super-hero. You just watch. Starski's gonna be the kind of guy parents tell their kids about in their bedtime stories, man. And I'll do it all for you." Starski gave a quick salute wave as he left, but was stopped by some pressing fear. He heard a loud, labored breathing coming behind him. A tortured and suffocating voice was rasping some nonsense syllables his way, but he dared not turn around to see it.

The darkness reached out through the bars of the green cell. Faded, gnarled roots of some black, disgraced tree grew out from the tiny slivers of natural lighting. The black Stand with pure physical form **The Sickness** slithered out, carrying with it the garbled insanity of its wielder, **Disturbed.** Starski looked from the snake-like extension and the thin boundary it had crawled its way from. The room was still bathed in green light, yet the maniac within had the metal strength and fortitude to withstand it long enough to attempt to deliver his message of repentance to his apparent savior outside.

_His body is his Stand_ Starski thought. _I guess putting him under that light too long would kill him. I can't let him roam around free, I just damn can't...but..._ Starski made his resolve. He swung open the door after unlocking it with the captain's key and faced down the masked man slumped like a beaten child in the corner. His eyes didn't move. All of his energy had gone to extending that single strand of himself from out of his stomach. His skin was all tattered and flayed like a shirt ripped by feral dogs. His mask was the only thing that seemed to keep up with itself, though the first layer of leather had been long peeled and scraped around.

"I have a proposition for you" Starski said, lording his presence as much as he could. "In return for letting you loose, you're going to have to give up your own freedom. You have to **take my place with Dio. Got it?**" Starski stood, expecting a reply. He acted as if he had got what he wanted, however, and left. The lights were on battery charge as Starski had unplugged them from their outlets. Disturbed sat in the room, waiting for the lights to diminish fully, and took his skin-torn pal of pitch black sinuous mass to his mask.

"**...Di...o...**"

* * *

The Event had created a massively powerful resonance that swept through the city, affecting the hundreds of thousands that therein lived. Even those from far out of the city, those normally dulled to such sweeping powers by their constant exposure to the unnaturally powerful, were affected in some particular way. Those nearest to the epicenter of the titanic energy were left fazed by the gravity of what had truly happened, but those just outside of the park were all affected the absolute worst.

It seemed that all fate had conspired hotly against Brad Bangalter on that day. He curled into a dark corner of the broken room that his transport had driven into and watched as the crackling electric whip of Mr. Network was squared off against the vastly superior power of Astella's Coldplay. The girl had a deep, grinning scowl and seemed to ignore the frozen blue shade her skin took. Her sweat slowed and froze into icicle droplets at her broad chin, exaggerating the snapping cold she controlled even further.

"Are we going to fight or not?" Network asked. "We have an appointment that exceeds your desires in priority." Astella wasn't amused. She attacked the air and fired a dense cloud of snow at Network. The second it hit, his skin poured out a defense wall of steam, heat meeting cold suddenly, and Brad was blinded from the action. Surely, though, Network wasn't unfazed yet. Such a vicious, frontal attack had to leave some visible mark of effect. Network dashed through the cloud and swung his whip into Coldplay. It caught the frozen knight's arm and cracked through its armor. Astella's own skin broke and bled, like a shell, and she forced herself to retreat. "No fighting? Then you'll surrender..." Astella tensed up and forced herself forward. Her Stand vanished and she, herself attacked Mr. Network with a powerful stomping kick. Network leaped to the side and made an acrobatic combat roll out of the way. His whip swung back on momentum and caught onto something nearby.

"RRRRRGH!" Astella growled. "I'm going to freeze-dry you and defrost you later just to lay a good, blind, **angry beat-down on something!**" Astella pounded her fists together, shattering all the ice around and on her body. Network, without a flinch or wasted second, swung his whip forward and threw the object he had latched. It hit Astella square on her forehead and seemed to explode in a bright, static flash. Astella reeled away from the attack with a steaming, burnt mark on her face which only seemed to increase her already substantial rage. Network rushed forward yet again and cracked his whip at Astella's face. She leaned away just in time and summoned her Stand to grab hr Stand to grab the whip on its second swing. Though it crackled with energy and tore at her flesh, she held it steady and attempted to freeze it.

"Electricity is energy" Mr. Network said. "**You can't freeze that.**" He swung Coldplay aside and delivered a leaning punch to Astella's throat. She was forced back even further and hit against the solid wall of the room. Mr. Network clenched his hand and examined his fingers strangely after the punch. He saw Coldplay reaching forward to grab at his face and leaned away appropriately to dodge the fiend's attack. He retreated behind a counter and swung his whip back to hook onto another unseen object.

"That whip of yours is getting obnoxious" Astella lowed.

"It's about to get worse" he said. With a flick of his wrist his whip's energy died and in his hand he held nothing more than a simple leather belt. He wrapped the belt around his hand and balled it up neatly before stowing it into a pouch on his tactical-military gear. "Electric Hellfire has more than one simple form. It's true form is about to blow you to bits."

"I'd like to see that!" Astella shouted as she pushed herself from the wall with a smash. Coldplay rushed forward to grab Network and freeze him to death. The man ducked and replacing his standing presence was a blinding flash of light coupled with a multitude of loud and bright explosions all along the wall behind. The rear of the store the battle had so rudely intruded upon was covered with monitors and hard-drives. The monitors were on so bright that they blinded Astella and Coldplay together and the hard-drives were activated at such insanely high frequency and output that their internal components had suddenly begun to combust and explode out toward the front of the store. Hard disks and clusters of wires attached to silicon flew out as searing-hot shrapnel, all aimed roughly at Astella. Coldplay fell back to protect, freezing and shattering what it could in mid-air with its super-fast punches of ice.

"You asshole!" Astella cursed. "This attack is useless! If these things even touch Coldplay they'll shatter! It's basic physics, isn't it? Going from too hot to too cold too fast results in breakage! Taking a piece of glass from a freezer and running hot water over it will make it shatter! Even placing something incredibly hot like a baking dish into low room-temperature air could make it break!"

"This isn't my attack!" Network shouted over the popping and hissing sounds. Astella became frighteningly aware of her surroundings. She was next to a display of extra-wide monitors that had been on the whole time she talked and defended herself. When she looked over she saw **long, yellow-armored arms reaching for her throat.** Before she could react the fingers of an ethereal being were wrapped around her thick throat and the lights dimmed. From the nearest monitor, one tilted from where she hit the wall, **Electric Hellfire's True Form lurked. A Stand equally knightly in its appearance to Coldplay but with sharper joints and corners, high spike-patterned shoulder guards and a brilliantly complex copper-colored crown of spines. Its face was robotic, with eyes like lined glass panes, narrow and jem-like. A solid guard-metal reached down from between its eyes and covered its mouth and lower jaw, framing its emotionless robotic glass eyes and emphasizing the doom within them.**

"My Stand" Network said "is a Stand of technology. It can control and manipulate energy at a basic level, which translates into **pure power to machines.** It can also **move through machines via wiring.** As long as its entrance and exit points are plugged in, it can move instantly between them. **It is pure electricity, a Stand unrivaled in this world of technological dependance.**" Astella was still choking, her breath quickly losing. Coldplay instinctively froze the area and tried to reach its enemy, but Hellfire ducked back into the monitor it had come from. Coldplay froze and broke that equipment in an instant, after it had gone and reappeared behind Mr. Network again via the small video-camera that remained undestroyed after the explosive display of artillery power he had invoked.

As Brad witnessed a professional, a man who had been tasked with mastering his own Stand and dutifully succeeded in matching his own illustrious expectations, he felt the urge to let the feeling of his excitement slip past his lips. However, he kept himself silent. The mad woman still didn't know that he was there, watching and staying on guard, or that he had reported their status to anyone. Astella managed to recover briefly and sought a route of escape. She ran to the center of the floor and stomped the floor, cracking it like a thin layer of ice beneath her strong heel.

"I'm through playing games with you, bastard!" she exclaimed. "I don't know how you happened to luck out like this and wind up in this store, but it doesn't matter to me! No matter where we go, or what conditions we fight under, _I'll_ always have the upper hand in the environment! A Stand that can control the climate can control the battlefield! And besides, even if I can't freeze pure electricity, I can still freeze all the devices that you can use to your benefit and give you **no possible options to use against me! I can freeze anything with just a touch! I can turn this floor to ice and the machines into snow! **_**I AM COMPLETELY IN CONTROL!**_"

Mr. Network, suave and arrogant as he seemed, lit a cigarette and had smoked it down to the butt in Astella's course of talking. He flicked what remained at her and let it shatter just within her Stand's freezing reach. "Only those who lack control force themselves to admit that they have it."

_Buuuuuurn!_ Brad thought, finding it harder to stay silent upon seeing Astella's irked face. A hiss of electricity and a zap of conducted sparks was summoned again. The whip was back.

"Let's go then" Network said. "I'll show you what hell I can summon to the world of technology..."

* * *

Cydonian Knight, a vicious demon of a Stand. System of a Down, a dark satanic beast with every part of its body able to rip and shred. The World, a fantastically powerful being with unlimited energy and powers still hidden. These three Stands and their users represent the balance of power thrown so far askew by the actions of war one of them had taken. They all squared off to fight, two against one, for the greater greed for peace and control.

Dio dashed to the side and leaned out past his own Stand's body. CK threw its powerful arm in a stretching punch at SoaD, trying to force it and Dio back. Dio threw a quick knife through the air at MUSE, whose legs were locked in pain from the hit she had previously taken. CK's arm bent in its straight fly to intercept and destroy the knife on contract.

"Just as I thought" Dio said. He rolled underneath the Stand's arm and had SoaD drag its sharp, long claws into its skin behind. Dio crawled across the ground and pushed himself up into a flying leap. SoaD swung its claws down and pushed against the ground to further Dio's own flight toward MUSE. The girl retreated in a half-staggered step while her Stand remained to counter Dio. It's long arm unwound into a thick, tangled mass of separate tentacles and started to quickly hammer down at the ground. Dio rolled out of danger's way and picked himself up into a haughty stance, with MUSE out from behind her own Stand and in the open. He wound his arm up and tossed a dagger her way. Again, it was deflected by the instinctive guard of CK, but it was not destroyed. It was tossed to the side and caught in the hands of Jojo who came rushing toward the fray with a stunning calmness. He took the dagger in his hand and charged MUSE with it. As he stabbed she fell intentionally to the side and grabbed him, one hand at his wrist and the other just above his elbow. She kicked her knee into his elbow, jolting it painfully back, and continued to fall away in retreat while her Stand remained and turned slowly toward Jojo.

"The World!" Jojo shouted. His Stand was summoned in a mid-flight stance with both fists wound back. Their connection as Stand and user had peaked. Jojo unconsciously controlled the formerly rebellious living figment to act the same way he would when faced with such a horrific threat: a flurry of fists. So Jojo and his Stand both called out at the same time "**ORA!**" The World's fists beat into the firm, ridged body of CK with the rapidity and stopping power of a machine gun. Each hit landed with a powerful brunt sound of force and shook the Stand where it stood. Despite the awesome display of power, CK seemed unfazed and simply turned to The World with its mouth open and drooling caustic spit.

"Hmph" Dio huffed. "Cocky whore." He rushed in on its blind side and summoned SoaD to swing its long bladed claws straight down. Like the swift strike of a sword, the fiend's unwound tentacle-arm was sliced clean off of its side and a spray of green acid sprayed out. Dio jumped far away from the spray, having SoaD's taloned feet aid him, as everything the acid touched was instantly melted and destroyed. Trees, grass, dirt and rocks all gave way and liquified to the corrosive, consuming liquid. CK seemed oblivious to its wound and simply wound back its remaining arm as if to punch through the field of fists The World threw at it. Then it stopped them, not one but **both** of The World's fists at once. Its hand had extended open like a net and then closed in to shackle the Stand's fists together. Jojo could feel the tightness around his wrists but couldn't pull away. He saw MUSE retreating through the grove of trees, so far from her Stand and out of the battle that it seemed less and less likely that her Stand would even remain.

"Dio!" Jojo shouted. "Go after MUSE! Something is wrong here!" Dio jerked his head past Jojo and saw the girl getting away. He snarled and sprinted after her with his Stand floating just within his shadow with its vicious shark-toothed mouth wide open.

_How could she still be standing?_ Dio wondered. _Her Stand took a beating and she doesn't seem to be even fazed by it! By rule, all Stands are directly linked in the damage they sustain to their users. It's unthinkable that one could somehow be without that rule and still have control over their Stand..._ SoaD took a quick chomp out of the side of a tree and produced a razor-thing handful of long oak splinters for Dio to throw. _It could be...that **she isn't in control at all!**_

Jojo, meanwhile, realized such things the hard way. CK's lost arm was regrown. A burst of acid and a sickening, slithering sound summoned up a tight coil of new tentacles. They reformed and regathered, stretching and growing grotesquely around each other until an entire muscular structure for a thick and powerful bicep formed. Then, from the end of that appendage came another to form the forearm, and then again to form a hand and five fingers. That hand was clutched hard into a dripping-wet fist and was thrown at blinding speed into the gut of The World. The Stand suffered surface breakage and its user, Jojo, was hit so hard that he was lifted off his feet and was thrown clear over the lower boughs of the high-cut tree behind him. Before he landed from the ten-foot drop he managed to catch a branch and swing from it to the trunk of another nearby tree where he hit shoulder-first to save his tenderly beaten stomach.

_It's power is incredible_ Jojo thought. _It's stronger than The World easily! It can regenerate lost limbs, use highly corrosive acid and even lengthen parts of its body exponentially! This Stand was created for nothing more than to fight. Every part of it is something that is meant to hurt and kill people!_ CK snarled and chomped its jaws together. Its daunting physique and terrible face, void of any semblance to humanity, struck a chord of fear into Jojo's chest. The boy started bleeding from the mouth. To keep himself mobile, Jojo dismissed his Stand energy and instead started a calm and rhythmic breathing. The Ripple took effect and slowly began healing his body by first numbing the pain and constricting the muscles to keep the injured parts from moving too much. Jojo stood up and started his retreat away from MUSE. CK swung its mighty arm and raked away a chunk of the tree Jojo had pushed off from, then gave howling chase.

Dio, meanwhile, caught up with MUSE. He grabbed her shoulder, heard her gasp with fear and threw a stern punch straight to her elegantly curved jaw. Before she had even moved from the force of the blow too much Dio planted his knee square under her ribs and jabbed his elbow to her back, pressing her between two hard points with malicious force.

"_**WRYYYYYYYYYYY!**_" Dio howled. He kicked MUSE off of his leg and onto the ground. She rolled and coughed out in pain, staying still on the ground as she gathered her strength to stand up again. "No more of this! Say your prayers!" Dio lunged in. From out of the shadows behind him the clawed hand of SoaD followed, reaching through the darkness for the girl's face. MUSE faced her attacker with an undaunted coolness and passive glare. Dio was struck by her and stopped himself just short of a decapitating grip.

"Why do you fight me with such passion, Dio Brando?" she asked. Dio was frozen solid. In a battle of pure charisma, he had been defeated by the gorgeous seductress. Even though she had him frozen, right where she wanted him, with all the power in her body remaining to pick herself up and call her own Stand back to kill him from afar, she did nothing. "Is it some vague matter of pride that you feel you must settle with me? Is it something to do with your ambitions of being a king of the dirty political underworld? Why do you hate me, Dio? Why must you try and try to kill me?" Dio unfroze himself a moment too late. MUSE countered his oppressing lean-in by kicking him between his legs. Dio shrank back with pain and MUSE rose up to push him over.

"How like a man" she said. "Just one attack and you fall flat to your back." She stood over him again, her hair framing her face with a mysterious aura of darkness, a nebulous movement of shining darkness. Dio, still on his back and on the ground, smiled. He began a mad, heaving laughter in response to the pain and arched his back up as he gasped in and hissed out with erratic, breathy laughs. MUSE glared down at him with a curious disgust. Before she could physically react further, she started to fall. SoaD stealthily stabbed through her Achilles tendon and ripped her muscles in both of her feet. She couldn't stand. She fell to the side but tried to lean her way back when she realized that she was falling. SoaD held her feet fast and flat to the ground, and when her legs bent too far back she felt a sharp crack of pain as her feet were quickly unfastened in their joints from her lower leg.

"I want to kill you" Dio said as MUSE fell silent in pain "**because I can't let anyone stronger than me threaten my existence! I will kill you, Johnathan and anyone who would dare to rise above me in this life! **_**I am the peak of the mountain, above all the clouds! I shall acknowledge nothing higher than myself, Dio, the Living God!**_" In his mad rage Dio slowly slid himself back up. He ignored his pain and relished in hers. "I shall teach you to speak out against me...**blasphemer!**" And so Dio's insane ego was revealed, and to it MUSE could only hold her head from its splitting pain and grit her teeth hard to bear it all. The roles had been tossed and reversed so much and so quickly that it was no wonder that she had seemed to snap. MUSE started to cry, laugh and scream out in an indistinguishable emotion all at once, like a senseless child crying out at the slightest sign of its discomfort with living.


End file.
